Layered Material Problems

[mitchino]

I am trying to use the layered material on a product packaging render to create a material with a base layer, and another layer where there is a gloss varnish.

I create my first material, and also create a copy of that material which has different specular settings and a black and white mask in the opacity channel to define where it should appear.

I then create a layered material. and try to drag the two materials into it. This doesn't work, I drag the first material in, but when I drag the second material in it just replaces the first material.

Maybe I shouldn't be using a layered material?

These days I'm finding Octane totally confusing when it comes to Mix materials, Composite Materials, Layered Materials and Universal Materials, which one to use? Or am I better stacking materials c4d style?

[Goldorak]

Composite fully replaced mix for combining and stacking any materials

Layers (which can be added to any physical material) is not the same as Material mixing - layers allow you to combine core BRDF layers into a totally custom material - for example we can create the built in universal material using just layers on top of diffuse base, or any custom variant. Unlink composite/mix this is treated as a single material, which is key for certain coatings and visual effects like Car paint and skin.

If you look at what osl material closures offer, material layers give you the same controls, but in the shader graph to make is easier for artists so they don’t need to write osl Materials in code.

[mitchino]

Thanks for explanation. We need tutorials explaining all this for relatively dumb people like me.

I used a composite material for my render.

What annoys me about the composite material is having to use sub materials, it would be better if you could use ordinary materials in the composite material.

[aoktar]

Thanks for explanation. We need tutorials explaining all this for relatively dumb people like me.

I used a composite material for my render.

What annoys me about the composite material is having to use sub materials, it would be better if you could use ordinary materials in the composite material.

Sub materials are ordinary materials, but it has to be in this form. Because otherwise that would be same as mix material system and had same handicaps. Now they can be owned by composite material and keep away from mix material system's problems. Try to love it.