Are there any plan to add basic material editing functionality in Sketchup?
Sometimes materials you want to edit are not visible in the viewport and names coming from multiple sources are not clear to make it easy to select in outliner.
For example light materials (F10, F20, F30 etc).
Material Editing in Sketchup.
There IS basic material editing in Sketchup - use the Materials Browser.
If there's a Texture you can edit that in an external app - you need to specify that in your 'preferences'.
You can save SKP's SKM materials as external files to use in other SKPs etc...
BUT IF you mean somehow linking OCS and SKP [SKM] materials so you can edit the materials for one in the other, it's NO.
The two applications materials are inherently different.
When you export a OBJ/MTL/Textures_folder from the SKP and use it in the OCS, Octane interprets the MTL file's data to make the RGB [for some yet to be explained reason the material's Alpha data is ignored!] and it also uses any specified texture-file, with appropriate UV-mapping, so that the SKP and OCS materials match pretty well [save for the transparency]...
Once imported, then on a re-import changed SKP-materials do not affect the equivalent named material already lodged in the OCS, only a brand new SKP-material is considered.
It may be that sometime in the future an fully integrated SKP/OCS interface could be developed, but that is not yet in prospect...
If there's a Texture you can edit that in an external app - you need to specify that in your 'preferences'.
You can save SKP's SKM materials as external files to use in other SKPs etc...
BUT IF you mean somehow linking OCS and SKP [SKM] materials so you can edit the materials for one in the other, it's NO.
The two applications materials are inherently different.
When you export a OBJ/MTL/Textures_folder from the SKP and use it in the OCS, Octane interprets the MTL file's data to make the RGB [for some yet to be explained reason the material's Alpha data is ignored!] and it also uses any specified texture-file, with appropriate UV-mapping, so that the SKP and OCS materials match pretty well [save for the transparency]...
Once imported, then on a re-import changed SKP-materials do not affect the equivalent named material already lodged in the OCS, only a brand new SKP-material is considered.
It may be that sometime in the future an fully integrated SKP/OCS interface could be developed, but that is not yet in prospect...
TIG
Material can only be set over the obj-file and that can´t handle things like emission or ies.
But materials like glossy, diffuse and specular are working with the right obj-file parameters.
face
But materials like glossy, diffuse and specular are working with the right obj-file parameters.
face
Win10 Pro, Driver 378.78, Softimage 2015SP2 & Octane 3.05 RC1,
64GB Ram, i7-6950X, GTX1080TI 11GB
http://vimeo.com/user2509578
64GB Ram, i7-6950X, GTX1080TI 11GB
http://vimeo.com/user2509578
Since a SKP cannot use anything 'clever' about a material - other than transparency 'Alpha' [which all current versions of Octane ignore when importing the MTL file's 'd' value anyway, requiring you to set transaprencies manually!] - then setting other potential material parameters within the SKP itself seems a little perverse.
You'd never get to view them until they appeared in the OCS anyway - where you can already set/adjust/view-the-results of these parameters at will...
Building an Octane-Material-Editor that ran within Sketchup would not be a simple task, and whilst Octane runs outside of the SKP, accepting only OBJ/MTL/TextureImageFiles files' data, it would seem a somewhat futile exercise to consider making it...
You'd never get to view them until they appeared in the OCS anyway - where you can already set/adjust/view-the-results of these parameters at will...
Building an Octane-Material-Editor that ran within Sketchup would not be a simple task, and whilst Octane runs outside of the SKP, accepting only OBJ/MTL/TextureImageFiles files' data, it would seem a somewhat futile exercise to consider making it...
TIG
I am aware of how some renderers allow 'material editing' within a SKP itself, although [as you agree] you can't see many of the affects of this editing until a renderer-window opens...
The 'simple' way to do this is that a dialog opens allowing you to choose from a list a material that's been used in the SKP and then adjust its additional 'properties', perhaps adding 'glossiness' settings and so on.
When you OK the edit the SKP's material appears unchanged; however, it has been given hidden attributes defining all of these additional properties.
When you export the material into "the renderer" as part of the process, as well as the typical material's RGB/A/Texture_image_file data etc the renderer material attributes are also read, interpreted and included. In the case of an OCS the OBJ's MTL file defining the materials could hold several additional values, for 'glossiness' etc that would then be read in by Octane too... BUT considering the current issues in getting even a material's 'alpha' to 'crossover' successfully [although it is already specified in the MTL code 'd' values] it all seems somewhat academic.
I CAN see that if one day Octane is made to open within the SKP itself and it is therefore more 'seamless' ... then a 'built-in' material-editor could be very useful... Just not 'now'.
The 'simple' way to do this is that a dialog opens allowing you to choose from a list a material that's been used in the SKP and then adjust its additional 'properties', perhaps adding 'glossiness' settings and so on.
When you OK the edit the SKP's material appears unchanged; however, it has been given hidden attributes defining all of these additional properties.
When you export the material into "the renderer" as part of the process, as well as the typical material's RGB/A/Texture_image_file data etc the renderer material attributes are also read, interpreted and included. In the case of an OCS the OBJ's MTL file defining the materials could hold several additional values, for 'glossiness' etc that would then be read in by Octane too... BUT considering the current issues in getting even a material's 'alpha' to 'crossover' successfully [although it is already specified in the MTL code 'd' values] it all seems somewhat academic.
I CAN see that if one day Octane is made to open within the SKP itself and it is therefore more 'seamless' ... then a 'built-in' material-editor could be very useful... Just not 'now'.
TIG