Hi!
I was just thinking: would it be possible to automate shader output to the viewport by default or by setting, so that for instance if I plug the shader into the Arnold beauty port it is automatically connected to the viewport port as well? I think for most of the materials one wants to have them show up in the viewport so this would be quite convenient (if possible), especially when converting a lot of Standard C4D materials to Arnold. Or is there any downside to having everything visible in the viewport, for example performancewise?
Yes, the main reason it's not automated is performance. I'm planning to improve viewport display, although not sure when it's gonna happen or what improvements can I actually make. The new viewport API in S22 is promising, yet I think it's still limited.
Thanks for your answer, I almost thought it was performance related -I usually only use the viewport materials for character animation so I didn't test any larger scenes with it. I'm excited to see what the new API might bring to Arnold, so far I didn't have the chance to use S22.
Are there also plans to make use of the new node system like redshift does recently or would that need a larger rewrite? I'm not sure if that does anything for the viewport though?
Oh that sounds like a lot of work.... but very cool, i always find the XPresso editor a bit fiddly 🙂
Not automatic, but one thing I find really useful is to bind the back and forward buttons on your mouse (assuming you're using a mouse and assuming they have forward and back buttons), to Alt+w, 1 (set to beauty) and Alt+w, 3 (set to viewport). This allows to to really quickly do shader output previews and make visible in vp.
thanks for the suggestion james - unfortunately I have a very basic mouse, but I will look into this, also for other applications that might come in handy. I once used a mouse like this and accidentally clicked the back button all the time, but I think it was because i am left handed and the mouse wasn't