MrMaterials.com - Site Suggestions

[StangCody]

thanks for the feedback!

I already have the auto-login setup so it's not really an issue except for new sessions. It's just a good feature to have for user accessibility. One of the few concepts I managed to hold onto after my web design classes was that the fewer times a user has to backtrack on your site in order to do something, the better they tend to like a site. It ranks right up there with load time on the importance scale.

I understand about the material forms. In the end the user is responsible, but I just happened to think it would be a nice feature assuming it's properly filled out. One could always mention an incorrect label in a comment. I'll be sure to check out all the materials you mentioned as well.

I do read Jeff's blog when I can. Mostly it seems he talks about features of 2009 lately but I gather what I can. A couple of days ago I actually recreated his no lights Audi video using one of my models (I would post, but I realized I used the hdri from his test object which would be a copywrite violation if I publish etc so I'll have to rerender).

I understand about all the hassle. I actually did a lot of work for a site just starting up a couple years back and it takes a lot out of you. Always keep one thing in mind though. Your site is already popular enough to be hacked. They wouldn't have bothered if your site wasn't good enough to get noticed.

[JeffPatton]

Originally Posted by StangCody

It would also be nice to have a separation between Max 9 and 2008-2009 materials.

Originally Posted by TheAllusionist

The materials file version item is tough, To top it off most people don't seem to understand what it is for and don't fill it out properly. I will see if in the "list" viewing option if we can search by that field as well, but it will only work as well as those who fill it out right.

Perhaps taking the guesswork out by changing that option from a text box to a drop down box where users pick from a list of versions. I have no clue how feasible, just a thought.

Originally Posted by StangCody

Something else that's sort of niche, but still helpful would be material setup pages. Rather than have 50K different paint materials, maybe add a page that shows how to set up a strong foundation for a paint material. I'm someone who learns by doing. I've rarely tried to make SSS work, and I have yet to find a tutorial that really clicks for me, but if I saw someone's material settings (not even necessarily skin, but plastic or orange juice lol) I could deconstruct what each setting actually did. That would not only make the site a place to get excellent materials, but where to learn how to make them yourself. This is more of a personal thing, and rather off-topic for the site, but it's something that could add to the content and possibly make the site stand out from the crowd.

Perhaps in the future we can implement a monthly material study wherein we post real-world reference images of a specific material and then explore the various properties of the material and go through the process of recreating it.

Off Topic: About the SSS comment, maybe you'll find Alex Alvarez's free video tutorial "Intro to Subsurface Scattering" helpful.
Gnomonology - Intro to Subsurface Scattering

He's using Maya, but most of the settings & concepts are the same for 3ds Max.

Thanks for taking the time to offer your suggestions!

[TheAllusionist]

Good point Jeff, I am just not knocking myself out anymore to cater to Autodesk voracious apetite for upgrade fees.

I thought about the drop down and see it as a problem since Autodesk releases so many versions of their software and we are supporting multiple programs, it is just too much upkeep and changing of code IMHO. Since Autodesk doesn't want backwards compatibility because that industry standard feature set would cut into their profitibility, they should just rename their extensions each version so that we knew what we were dealing with at a glance

I will see about adding the "File Version" field as an uption in arranging content in the 'List' viewing option format.

Other items like repeating material study sounds terrific!

[HamburgerTrain]

With Maya 2009 there is a new feature that allows data to be encapsulated:

Maya Assets
With Maya Assets, complex data can be effectively organized, shared, referenced, and presented. Maya Assets enables you to encapsulate a set of nodes into a container so that they can be treated as if they were a single node from a user’s perspective (selected attributes of interest from the contained nodes can be published to the container). This new feature also supports customized and user-specific views, flexible referencing, and the creation of customized libraries.

I'm thinking this will make it easier to share Maya materials much like the same way it is with Max with the .mat materials. If so I might have a crack at doing some materials because it's pretty bare bones there at the moment.

[TheAllusionist]

Yes we have been looking at options like phenoms, in XSI 7 it is called compounds and one of the reasons I had been waiting for XSI 7 to be delivered beore I worried about trying to create materials for it. Business just gets in the way of a lot of things

Of course your contributions would be appreciated

[siliconbauhaus]

This may have been mentioned already and I apologise for repeating it if it has.

It would be rather useful if a section of the library has a new material added to it, to be highlighted when you look at the over all list (ie similar to new posts in a forum).

[TheAllusionist]

I suggest looking in the latest uploads page:
Latest Uploads based on Software:

and the thumbnail and list display method in libraries show the latest uplaods first. Anything like the forum would have to use a cookie system and starts to get complicated. I will keep it in mind of course and as more materials get uploaded and the site becomes more successful more features will be added.

Thanks for sharing your ideas.