OTOY Forums

Hey guys,

I've been thinking a little about how the LiveDB works and have a few suggestions that might help to improve it.

There are a lot of materials that have bad quality, are not named correctly or are not named at all.
Other materials have specific textures/UV coordinates assigned, like materials fo a head for example, which are not usable on any other object.

The Live DB gets cluttered as a result and it becomes harder to find good materials.

I suggest that there could be something like an "Approved material" section. We could do this by peer reviews, for example.
If a material gets, lets say, at least four 5-star votings or something similar, it gets moved to that section.
Maybe some only selected users do the approving, or all of us, I am not sure.
The rest of the materials could be in a "Unapproved" section.

I think this could help improve the organisation of the Live DB.


Also, I have a feeling that the search function could be improved a bit.
Often I dont find a material that I know exists and I know it has, say "Leaf" in its name, but the search function does not find it, so i have to look for it manually.


What do you guys think?
Cheers!

RahiSan wrote:Hey guys,

I've been thinking a little about how the LiveDB works and have a few suggestions that might help to improve it.

There are a lot of materials that have bad quality, are not named correctly or are not named at all.
Other materials have specific textures/UV coordinates assigned, like materials fo a head for example, which are not usable on any other object.

The Live DB gets cluttered as a result and it becomes harder to find good materials.

I suggest that there could be something like an "Approved material" section. We could do this by peer reviews, for example.
If a material gets, lets say, at least four 5-star votings or something similar, it gets moved to that section.
Maybe some only selected users do the approving, or all of us, I am not sure.
The rest of the materials could be in a "Unapproved" section.

I think this could help improve the organisation of the Live DB.


Also, I have a feeling that the search function could be improved a bit.
Often I dont find a material that I know exists and I know it has, say "Leaf" in its name, but the search function does not find it, so i have to look for it manually.


What do you guys think?
Cheers!

Agreed. It is high on the 3.x priority list. We have to add an approval and white listing filter beyond what we have now for script nodes and C plug-ins, but it should also apply to assets (and scenes) uploaded to the DB.

Very nice, thank you for the quick reply!

Maybe a good time to mention again: I think it was well over a year ago, I suggested incentivizing the LiveDB by giving render cloud credits for assets created/uploaded that meet certain criteria and have high popularity/feedback. LiveDB quality and quantity would explode, imho. Could end up like Substance DB...

FrankPooleFloating wrote:Maybe a good time to mention again: I think it was well over a year ago, I suggested incentivizing the LiveDB by giving render cloud credits for assets created/uploaded that meet certain criteria and have high popularity/feedback. LiveDB quality and quantity would explode, imho. Could end up like Substance DB...

Not lost on the team here. ORC just added render credit backend and is deeply integrated in V3 alpha releases from here on out.

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Why not create an Otoy store in which users and Otoy can sell licensed OctaneRender materials and shaders?

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In general I extremely appreciate it to have quick and free access to OctaneRender materials via the liveDB.

BUT

I would also feel more comfortable if I would have paid for a licensed shader product so it is very clear that

- the creators of the shaders upload only textures they have the right to distribute
- the creators of the shaders do not expect any further compensation or credit
- the users of the liveDB materials do not have to worry about using shaders created by others

Free stuff is great to experiment with and learn in spare time projects. But from a commercial side of things I actually do prefer contracts and a paid license system. That way all sides can be sure everything is in order from a legal point of view.

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Still it does not have to be one or the other.
As others suggested what might be a good starting point is to create a more advanced liveDB category system with different sections.

- Official shaders by Otoy for commercial use
- licensed shader packs sold in a store for commercial use
- user shared free shaders to use at everyones own risk

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I have just started using the Standalone version and am really surprised there is no search function in the livedb tab.. all the other renderers i have used allow you to search for keywords..
Is this being added at some point? Really hard to find specific materials in its current condition