OTOY Forums

I found Octane's new metal options quite confusing until I discovered the tutorial here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1t7bC4_Nto&t=2869s

Even with this tutorial I think there are some clean-ups needed with the User Interface... which I'll suggest with a screen grab.



To explain:
1. The red IOR field row isn't labelled properly.

2. N and K fields aren't identified

3. It would be tremendously useful to users if the RGB 'N' and 'K' vales could be populated by selecting from a menu of common metals. It is a major pain to collect/calculate/enter these values. Selecting one of the presets would auto-populate the correct values for all six fields. If it's too much fuss to add these presets in a menu...then it would be really nice to have a 'cheat sheet'. By cheat sheet I mean a pop-up where we could at least see the values for common metals....Perhaps re-key or copy-paste them from there.

4. This isn't referenced in my screen grab....but also...since the "Creative" iOR option uses the specular color, I recommend displaying that color value there... if that mode is active.

Thank you - excellent feedback.

I totally agree with this suggestion! I would appreciate a workflow like in the c4d reflective channel with a dropdown menu for most common metals!

I would even go further and add a value for oxidation, when you use realistic ior values it is still not realistic, because you have a metal that is like polished or fresh cut without any patina.

dasmodular wrote:I totally agree with this suggestion! I would appreciate a workflow like in the c4d reflective channel with a dropdown menu for most common metals!

I would even go further and add a value for oxidation, when you use realistic ior values it is still not realistic, because you have a metal that is like polished or fresh cut without any patina.

To get realistic gold the artist needs to thoughtfully craft several image or noise maps in various channels. But this very much depends on age, wear, polish. While I like the idea...I am not sure that is proper territory for presets. There are too many variables and possibilities and this is where the user is responsible, IMO.

But it is easy to code programmatic entry of 6 n/k values per metal so users don't have to run back and forth to RefractiveIndex web site over and over again....that I believe is good software design.