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Winging myself off the modler Material editor....
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Winging myself off the modler Material editor.... // The Garage
Post by tscorpio // May 17, 2007, 4:07pm
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tscorpio
Total Posts: 84
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OK, I put it off for too long now. I told myself that with 7.5 I would start moving away from the modeling tab, and I'm embarrased at how little I can do with the workspace aspect.
Case in point:
How the heck do you apply a texture map to an object with the Link editor?
I have my object node, I drop in a texture node but what do I link to what?
I dragged the caligari texture to my object and it applied it, but where do go in the Link Editor to set an image for it?
I swear this link editor is going to drive me nuts!! For some reason, I'm having a mental block on the whole visual linking concept.... |
Post by Burnart // May 17, 2007, 4:46pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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You have to dig down into the objects attributes via the little orange triangles etc - the easiest thing might be to apply an existing texture with a map (drag and drop in the workspace) then burrow in the LE objects until you find where the texture is attached. It is kinda complicated compared to the earlier method but does make sense when you figure it out where o look.
At the risk of sounding like a teacher have you looked at the appropriate section of the manual? I'm at work and can't remember which chapt.... |
Post by stan // May 18, 2007, 5:28am
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stan
Total Posts: 1240
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I think you still use the model side material editor because the lightworks renderer is on model side. there is a vray material editor in workspace, sofar I don't really like how it works..there is a default and live view which is always changing back to default where there is no realtime material update..also they seem to be more intrested in realtime material because vray materisl doesn't showup in the scene looking at all like you think it should and I'm not sold on the vray render window either:( |
Post by tscorpio // May 19, 2007, 5:21pm
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tscorpio
Total Posts: 84
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Yea I've been looking through the manual & tutorials, "Drag this to that"... but it doesn't go much into *why* your conecting thouse things together, so I'm not getting to much out of it.
I mean, I get the whole concept of things "feeding" each other, but what the heck to all the fields effect??
I keep going back to the good ol' Material Editor and popping back to see what all has changed in the linkage, it's just a lot of trial and error stuff.
I wish there was something that goes into detale about the objects. |
Post by Emmanuel // May 19, 2007, 10:30pm
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Emmanuel
Total Posts: 439
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also they seem to be more intrested in realtime material
Even realtime/DirectX materials should be edited with a Material Editor, not in the LE.
LE is a development place, not a normal way to edit materials and apply textures.
I have been trying to make a simple constant shader material with an alpha transparency map with no luck for months.
Cayenne explained to me step by step the rules of material edition in LE and teached how to create that material. It make sense now.
But, man, it is thousand time faster to clic an object or a face, and paint it from a Material Editor :rolleyes: |
Post by W!ZARD // May 20, 2007, 1:48am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Even realtime/DirectX materials should be edited with a Material Editor, not in the LE.
LE is a development place, not a normal way to edit materials and apply textures.
Link Editors and Node Based editors seem to be the way of the future - more and more programs seem to be using them - and from a programmers perspective they are probably an excellent solution to many UI issues. As an artist however boxes of cryptic text seem inherently alien to what I'm wanting to do as an artist.
If I want some blue in my painting I select a suitable brush and dip it into a suitable shade of blue paint (or mix shades of paint until a suitable hue is created). This seems natural and so material editors like the LW ME in the modeler seem more natural and intuitive to learn. A painter dipping his brush into an enigmatic text box and hoping for the right shade of blue to appear? This just does not seem right or natural - at least at first glance.
Link and Node Editors do not really strike me as 'Artists tools' - more like 'Programmers tools'.
It doesn't matter how clever the technology is - if it's not engineered with the 'Human Factor" uppermost in it's design it will fail - at least in the marketplace. This is why so many people still can't program a VCR!
I will personally persevere with the LE - as I said before, this type of UI is becoming more common and I want to stay reasonably in touch with modern developments.
Last Night I loaded the Landscape Procedural Object and had a play - I was impressed with the ease with which a nice landscape could be made - but the dual layers do not work in the LightWorks renderer and dispite the manuals assurance that the textures could easily be changed by double clicking them I could not work out where to double click them! Why? because it's not intuitive. Do I click in the stack panel? There are several layers in the LE where one would expect to be able to do the double click thing but I was unable to change the textures no matter where I double clicked. Shrug - never mind, I'll just stroll back across the bridge.
I've always considered the LW ME used in tS 5 and 6 to be wonderful - versatile, easy to use, functional and elegant. For me it's always been one of trueSpaces greatest strengths. The DX9 and V-ray shaders need to be at least as elegant and intuitive and functional as the LW ME to my mind - and so far it seems they are not, judging from the general tone of comments here. |
Post by stan // May 20, 2007, 5:56am
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stan
Total Posts: 1240
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using the LE to make material is not what most people want..it just shows hoe unpolished the program is..the LE is like using the now defunked shadermagic to try building shaders..the LE may do it well but not in an easy fashion.
with the vray material editor I find things operate poorly, like panels not closing..items not loading , it takes many clicks tofinally make it work..:( |
Post by tscorpio // May 20, 2007, 8:45am
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tscorpio
Total Posts: 84
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So I take it if you wanted to learn about the Link editor, Shadrers may not be the best starting place? |
Post by stan // May 20, 2007, 10:50am
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stan
Total Posts: 1240
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I'm not saying don't..they did forget the script shaders access in ts7.5 like it did in ts7.11.[maybe it doesn't work anymore. see pic ].if you want to build shaders that way it's just not easy like using the LWme and does nearly the same thing :rolleyes:
if you are into realtime shaders thats the only place to do it.. |
Post by tscorpio // May 21, 2007, 8:03am
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tscorpio
Total Posts: 84
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I found the designers guide and it is clearing up a BUNCH some of stuff. I'm a programmer/developer during the day (VB.NET, C# & ASP.NET) , so the designers guide is probably going to be my new best friend for awhile ;) The whole material thing is shaky and I'll get back to it after I get more familiar with the Link Editor as a whole. Right now I'm gonna concentrate on behaviours.
See if I'm understanding this right:
I Am beginning to understand that the Activity Base library is simply a set of pre-written code modules that ship with TS. There is nothing to keep you from drilling down into the source code and making your own changes to them. (Or creating your own) Graphically, they look like a rectangle in the link editor and the available links are those parameters have been made public in the code(?)
So that makes an "Activity" analgous to "Program" - (Again, speaking in computer programming terms..) ?? |
Post by tscorpio // May 21, 2007, 8:08am
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tscorpio
Total Posts: 84
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I found the designers guide and it is clearing up a BUNCH some of stuff. I'm a programmer/developer during the day (VB.NET, C# & ASP.NET) , so the designers guide is probably going to be my new best friend for awhile ;) The whole material thing is shaky and I'll get back to it after I get more familiar with the Link Editor as a whole. Right now I'm gonna concentrate on behaviours.
See if I'm understanding this right:
I Am beginning to understand that the Activity Base library is simply a set of pre-written code modules that ship with TS. There is nothing to keep you from drilling down into the source code and making your own changes to them. (Or creating your own) Graphically, they look like a rectangle in the link editor and the available links are those parameters have been made public in the code(?)
So that makes an "Activity" analgous to "Program" - (Again, speaking in computer programming terms..) ??
Oh yea, I forget to include:
If "Activity" *is* analgous to "program", then the link editor is how you would setup your logic & flow.
so instead of having If/Then/Else, Do/While/Loops, etc calling your modules, you do it graphically by connecting the components in the Link Editor? |
Post by trueBlue // May 21, 2007, 8:19am
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trueBlue
Total Posts: 1761
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I found the designers guide and it is clearing up a BUNCH some of stuff. I'm a programmer/developer during the day (VB.NET, C# & ASP.NET) , so the designers guide is probably going to be my new best friend for awhile ;) The whole material thing is shaky and I'll get back to it after I get more familiar with the Link Editor as a whole. Right now I'm gonna concentrate on behaviours.
See if I'm understanding this right:
I Am beginning to understand that the Activity Base library is simply a set of pre-written code modules that ship with TS. There is nothing to keep you from drilling down into the source code and making your own changes to them. (Or creating your own) Graphically, they look like a rectangle in the link editor and the available links are those parameters have been made public in the code(?)
So that makes an "Activity" analgous to "Program" - (Again, speaking in computer programming terms..) ??
Yes actually they are compiled and it has been said that they run better compiled. |
Post by Délé // May 21, 2007, 9:11am
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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Oh yea, I forget to include:
If "Activity" *is* analgous to "program", then the link editor is how you would setup your logic & flow.
so instead of having If/Then/Else, Do/While/Loops, etc calling your modules, you do it graphically by connecting the components in the Link Editor? Yeah, kind of. You can still do your If/Else, Do/While stuff within scripts. The LE does provide a nice easy graphical way of sharing information between objects and scripts though. It's almost like Lego's for programming. If you create your own scripts, it's like creating your own Lego blocks to work with. :) It's not just about creating activities and behaviors though, you can also create tools to help you create. Very powerful. :) |
Post by tscorpio // May 21, 2007, 10:54am
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tscorpio
Total Posts: 84
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Yes actually they are compiled and it has been said that they run better compiled.
Oh heck ya!!!
Compiled is always the way to go if you can - the converting from high level commands to machine code on the fly every time really cuts into performance.
Is there a way to compile it? What would it compile into? (ex DLL?)
I don't beleive the base activity components are compiled though. The Rotator component for example - I can keep drilling down into it until I get down to actual source code...I'm not famulair with the TS commands, but it looks like what is driving everything and the comments help explain it all. |
Post by trueBlue // May 21, 2007, 11:08am
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trueBlue
Total Posts: 1761
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Well any node that you can not enter inside would be complied. As for a Compiler you would have to ask Caligari. |
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