Yafaray4tS v0.9.0

[bitkar]

what the hell.... this looks like something from Startrek to me :D

[clintonman]

what the hell.... this looks like something from Startrek to me

You're gonna have to tell me which one so I can look for it

[clintonman]

Glass material preview updated to match the renders better. Sphere labeled "4".
First image shows absorption color in the middle with the reflection/mirror color on the outer edges.
In the second image the absorption in the middle was changed to blue and the color map replaced the red mirror color.

Not shown is some of the procedural texture code and nodes are in place along with the color blending between the mirror color and the texture.

One more thing needed for the preview is that the filter color should replace the absorption color when "Use Absorption" is unchecked.

[bitkar]

Clintonman: all the node programing... looks like from a scifi movie :D

[clintonman]

Rough glass preview. Added a noise texture to represent the exponent value for the roughness in the preview.

next up will make adjustments to the 2 glossy material previews and then make the blend materials.

[clintonman]

All base materials are done. They all have improved previews and procedural texture options for the main color. I discovered that the coated glossy material was missing the mirror attributes that give it the shiny reflection coating. The mirror won't change the realtime preview because of laziness, maybe later.

Next is to make the blend material.

[clintonman]

Image shows a procedural wood bands made of purple and green stripes combined with an image using the wood rings procedural.
Blend material preview starting to come together. materials can also be blended with a single value instead of a texture. Still a few items to add and coordinate before the blend preview is done. Then comes adding the blend material to the render code. I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

[clintonman]

Blend Material first render on the left.
Large shape has the blend material combining 50% of 2 materials in the blend material collection. The 2 materials were copied to 2 smaller objects to show in the render. The 3d viewport preview on the right does not show transparency for blend material, only simplified color information goes into the preview.
Another step closer to "done"

[trueBlue]

Awesome! Looking forward to seeing all of your hard work!

[clintonman]

It looks like the yafaray renderer has a bug. Some colors can get messed up even when rendering from blender.
Images shows the problem as shift from red to orange color. The image on the bottom is from a hack to make it look better.

I was planning to add a blend material that is controlled by a texture, but it doesn't even work in blender, so that's cancelled.

Good news is that the blend material is done and exporting, colors have all been fixed to output the same as blenders exporter, the exporter won't crash if old yafaray materials are in a scene, plain and gradient background color previews match the renders more closely. Found that the scene needed another option to get "good" colors. LinearRGB is the default. When I switch to sRGB suddenly most of the color problems disappeared.

Next step is make it easier to use. There's a lot of awkwardness in the ui that came from all the changes. And I need to make the hack an actual option in the ui so it can be turned off. My guess at the moment is that a linear exported image may work better with the LinearRGB option and no hacked colors. Testing is needed...