suggestions and improvements

[jet-project]

1. Add recent/favorites nodes - Network Editor (i can use fast search like ctrl+tab,
but it not so fast, usualy for materials users used 4-5 nodes.

2. If i convert my nodes in Network Editor to Xgroup and create vector output node,
it's not working.

3. Ipr doesn't work, when Network Editor is adding to any tab.
It's running, but it's don't render anything

4. Any of layer shaders doesn't work on viewport of C4D, it's shows as black/blank material.

5. Maybe removing shader port from bump2d is not good solution, now i can't add bump to all my layer shader stack. So now i need to add a bump to normal separately. It's not so comfortable.

6. The layers of Layer RGBA shader have so strange order system. For some reasons layer 1 is topest and last in list. But in other layer shaders order is logicaly fine

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

Thanks for the feedback.

1. That'd be a nice addition indeed. Although the main priority at the moment is to move to the new builtin node editor and deprecate the current one.

2. Xgroups are not supported in the network editor. As above this probably won't be addressed because of moving to the new node editor.

3. That's a known issue, I have a possible solution under testing.

4. I'll take a look, thanks.

5. There are some technical reasons why this change was necessary.

6. I think the order is the same in all layer shaders, bottom to top, Layer 1 is evaluated first at the bottom, Layer 8 is the last at the top.

[jet-project · Accepted solution]

@Peter Horvath Thanks for your job, by the way. Great product.

Here is an issue with layer RGBA shader. I think the color is gotta be green in this order.

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

I see. It's because the default Operation is 'over' which adds the top layer to the bottom based on the alpha. It makes sense for textures, and I see it can be confusing. Probably having 'overwrite' as the default would be a better choice.

[jet-project]

1. Layer shader operations could be better organized. Like in photoshop or standart c4d shader they separated by groups of their effects of overlaying. Now it's sorted by ABC, and it really hard to find by means, if i don't know what excactly i'm looking for.

They could be grouped in something like:

-Normal-

-Dark overlay modes-

-Light overlay modes-

-Contrast overlay modes-

-Calculations (Subtract, exclusion)

And ect.

2. It's so strange, maybe i'm doing something wrong, but the softness of float ramp curve is doing nothing. When i'll make smooth curve or easy ease it doesn't effect to anything.

3. It will be great to add to node left click menu reset to default button.

4. It will be great to add invert parameter inside image node

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

1. Good point, I'll take a look if I can add groups.

2. The Arnold ramp shader supports different interpolation methods and settings than the C4D ramp UI, so there could be differences. To match the C4D settings, ramps shaders have the Sampling option which samples the curve or gradient defined on the UI.

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

3. Not sure what you mean. You can reset shader parameters via the Attribute Editor (right click > Reset All).

4. Currently you have to add a color_correct node to invert. There were talks about moving some of the most used color correct settings to the image shader to improve the workflow.

[jet-project]

Don't know about sampling check, it works, great!

[jet-project]

3. Yeap, it's not necessary stuff, my fault. I think about insert reset here too, for fast control, but maybe it's complexity that doesn't needed

4.I've tried to find fast invert option here. And logically i change an order between multiply and offset. (as black point and white point) but it doesn't work so, as i now know

[jet-project]

@ Hi Peter. Can you help me, i can't understand one strange thing with Arnold drivers.

When i've adding usual arnold exr driver - its single in my scene. But when i'm turned to AOVs drivers list...BOOM here is another display driver "<display d(driver c4d display)". But in output section this is dessapeared again. This driver doesent have my aov's.

And another intresting question. For example i have 3 drivers with different aov and output formats. How i can render just one of it? (about number of their position in aov distplay list i know)

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

The display driver is used to display images in the Picture Viewer and IPR. When you go to the AOV list in the render settings, this driver is created automatically, so it's listed and you can assign AOVs to it. These are the AOVs rendered to the Picture Viewer. If you don't assign any AOVs to the display driver, it is removed automatically when you leave the AOV settings.

You can disable drivers like any other objects, by turning off 'Visible in Renderer' or 'Enabled' (clicking on the checkmark next to the name).

[jet-project]

@Peter Horvath Hi Peter. Please could help to understand one thing. Is it a feature or a bug?

The transmission weight isn't working with the opacity mask now. I just destroying my brain with it. Just want to make my usual smudge glass BUT the transparency region is totally black. Where he did take the black colour? I don't have it in my material settings. In early versions, it's worked another way. Here is a screenshot with mask and mats settings. Thanks

[jet-project]

The main problem is that I can't apply the curvature node as a grayscale map to transmission weight! For some reason, it became black on transparent areas.

[jet-project]

@Stephen Blair Hi, I thought that you are an Arnold guru. Could you help me with that?

[lee_griggs]

Here is curvature->range->standard_surface.opacity