YafaRay plugin; update roadmap and change list

[oort]

You are right that Kerkythea and Pov-Ray use the main one but they also have additional color settings that have to be set for some things.

Kerkythea Options = Set type to SSS and you have to set Translucency, Absorption, and Scatter color.

Also with Kerkythea I always had to hit the ? to figure out what colors were affecting my render colors.

Pov-Ray Options = Reflection enabled you have to set Minimum Color. Under Interior > Extended Interior enabled you have to set Fade Color.

I feel it is easier to ignore the main/OpenGL settings. The settings that affect YafaRay are all under YafaRay Options.

oort

[povmaniac]

...
I feel it is easier to ignore the main/OpenGL settings. The settings that affect YafaRay are all under YafaRay Options.

oort

I agree..

[micheus]

First of all, my apologies.
I talked about something that I have not tested. I'm looking at the source codes looking for a way to best define the Default material. As the Yafaray atom used for diffuse color is other them that used for OpenGL I made the assumption that their value would be different after I use the Vertex to Material option.

I feel it is easier to ignore the main/OpenGL settings. The settings that affect YafaRay are all under YafaRay Options.

I'm still not sure about that.
I'm trying to discovery in which moment the default material for a specific render is added to the material created by the Vertex to Material option. I just tracked that it call the same function that initializes the Default material and changes its diffuse value, but I couldn't find where the renders options was introduced - I hope I can go deeper this night.

Because of my experiments I'm thinking about to add a [Set default] button for each render session. The option that we have on Plugins Preferences dialog doesn't help us much - it's important define the material details too.

About yafaray plugin:
- I would like to understand what the utility of use that default buttons for some property (like colors). oort, could you please explain it better?
- I'm getting a crash when closing the Light property editor. Can someone else confirm this?

I just noticed in a scene - with lights - if all my objects are coloured glass materials and I use a dark background I cannot see anything - even a bright/flare. Is this the usual behaviour of yafaray?!

[oort]

Micheus,
Look for DEF_SHADER_TYPE. I added this to Edit > Plugin Preferences so that I could choose a default shader (Glass,SSS,etc.). Yes it would be good to be able to set more than just the shader type. The default values worked for the simple test renders I was doing but for more control one should probably be able to set other defaults. This could get messy since some shaders have only a few settings and others have lots of settings. Compare "light material" shader to "Translucent SSS" shader.

I do not understand what you mean by "render session" when you say you want to add a [Set Default] button for each render session.

The "Set Default" button for colors is something I copied from the old Yafray plug-in. It makes it possible to copy the OpenGL color setting to the YafaRay options diffuse or other color setting with a single click. The Yafaray options diffuse color used to default to black but I changed the code so that the diffuse would automatically use the OpenGL color setting.

Keeping the OpenGL settings separate also comes in handy when using models that have been imported from other programs. I can play with the colors under YafaRay options and still keep the original colors for reference.

Which lights are causing a crash? I think I had that happen on an existing file with an ambient light with HDRI. I had to delete the Ambient light and add a new one to fix the problem.

I think with glass materials you need to add an ambient HDRI light so that the glass has something to reflect.

oort

[micheus]

This could get messy since some shaders have only a few settings and others have lots of settings.

The idea is to use a structure data to store each render settings. This way, we replace everything for that render (we can have only one default material per render app)

I do not understand what you mean by "render session"

Sorry, I'm talking about the render's group-box (that one you shrink[-] and collapse[+]).

It makes it possible to copy the OpenGL color setting to the YafaRay options diffuse or other color setting with a single click.

Don't you think that also is easy if we use the pick color button (from the color dialog)? - despite the extra click, of course. I do that many times.

Which lights are causing a crash?

I checked it again and it's happening if I install the plugin for the 64bits version. In this case for Point light I get the message "plugin(s) left garbage: []" and for Area light I get a crash dump.
By removing the plugin it's all fine again.

... so that the glass has something to reflect.

I was expecting to see the light reflection. Looking carefully I realize that the Reflected Light property was set to 0.0 (its default) - shouldn't it be changed to 1.0 or 0.5, since glass uses to be reflective?

Just to illustrate, the reason why I was expecting see something is because - on POV-Ray - It uses the opacity settings. So for Wings3D material below I've set Opacity=0.02:

IMO, the spot light reflection on Ruby_Glass material should be visible for the other renders too.

[oort]

Micheus,
So you want to move the "Default Shader" setting under Edit > Plugin Preferences > Yafaray to the Material Properties dialog. Why not simply add a "Default Shader" setting under Edit > Plugin Preferences > Kerkythea??? Once set, I don't think one would change it very often.

Yes, I have used the eye dropper (color picker) to copy colors and it is only one extra click. For some reason when using the eye dropper the numbers never match exactly for me...

Sorry I cannot test the 64bit version. Point and Area lights have no problems in the 32bit version.

Yes, the default reflected color could change to something other than black. Currently the variable DefReflected is used to control the reflected color for all the different shaders. DefReflected is defined by the OpenGL Specular color which is black by default. I don't know where you would change the default OpenGL specular color. I guess you could make DefReflected a separate definable default so that it is not using the OpenGL Specular color. I just got a little lazy with some things and just followed what was done in old Yafray...

The OpenGL Shininess and Opacity settings have no affect on YafaRay render results.

oort

[micheus]

oort, as I don't want mess up this thread and I'm changing the subject of my idea I create a new thread for that: Material library

[micheus]

Which lights are causing a crash?

I checked it again and it's happening if I install the plugin for the 64bits version. In this case for Point light I get the message "plugin(s) left garbage: []" and for Area light I get a crash dump.
By removing the plugin it's all fine again.

I need to improve my evaluations.
I just check better the situation and I found that this problem is one that I have already pushed a fix (3 months ago) and today I checked that the branch for the 64bits version of Wings3d was created there is 5 months. Sorry again guys.

[povmaniac]

In YafaRay Blender exporter is possible load a predefined material: using 'material presets'
But is Python. Erlang is other world...
If anybody is interested, I can prepare an 'python template'.
Daemons..!! I have more ideas, but only two hands !!
Btw.. http://www.yafaray.org/community/forum/v...328#p30328

[micheus]

If anybody is interested, I can prepare an 'python template'.

Thanks povmaniac, but I think you don't need spend time with that. Keep working on Yafaray (and on Wings3d's plugin too, when you have time).
I'm still thinking about how to implement that material library in a way that it can be useful without add complexity to the code (I don't want to write a file interpreter for any specific render's materials files). Any idea is welcome to the thread I created for that.