face_off wrote:Happy to remove the default as you suggest. However will that break old scenes and figures?It might actually help users if new releases of the plugin would ship without any values set in the surface filter by default.
Paul
How does changing the default Surface Material Filter settings affect old scenes and figures?
The Surface Material Filter settings are saved to one of the user setting files installed by the plugin.
A normal plugin update will not affect those.
I manually removed the Surface Material Filter settings when I first installed the plugin and updates do not seem to change my settings of the Surface Material Filter.
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If users reinstall the plugin on a new computer then they would indeed miss the "old" default filter settings and some of their scenes would look differently.
Still, changing the default settings of the plugin does not break anything that cannot be restored by simply adding the missing terms into the filter again where needed.
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Side Note - Daz3D figures and their surface settings
The Surface Material Filter entries Cornea, eyesurface and eyebrows were recommended to be used for Victoria 4.2 and Michael 4 when rendering them in Octane. Those figures were released in 2008 but were still popular in 2013 when the OctaneRender for DAZ Studio plugin was made available.
When rendering the Genesis figure released in 2011 it was a common practice to use the "Clear Cornea" material from the OctaneliveDB.
-> For that to work the users had to remove the "Cornea" entry from the Surface Material Filter.
-> Most users of that time should be aware to adjust the Surface Material Filter based on the generation of figures to render.
With the introduction of Genesis 2 (2013) and Genesis 3 (2015) it also was not needed anymore to hide the Cornea.
In 2017 with Genesis 8 a new eyebrow attachment was introduced with Victoria 8 and Michael 8.
In order for Genesis 8 to render properly with Octane it is recommended to remove the "Cornea" and the "Eyebrow" entries from the Surface Material Filter to make those surfaces show up.
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Subjective impression:
-> The Surface Material Filter settings are best left empty by default.
Most existing users who work with the older generation figures should also know in which cases it is helpful to use the Surface Material Filter and when it would be enough to just work with the opacity in the material settings. Users who still need them for their older scenes could simply add the missing terms again.
User who install Octane on a new computer may have to adjust any other of their personal preferences anyway.
While doing that they should also come across the Surface Material Filter.
It seems more important that the newest figure generations render properly for those new users who want to try out the plugin.
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