New material - reverse the order

Andy, all- adding a new material has always seemed a little awkward what with going out to the disk as a first action, then needing ‘More types’ to get to a brand new material… so since we’re digging in here for V6, I suggest putting the list of material types right on the + sign when it is clicked, along with an obvious way to get to the disk, kind of like so:

??

-Pascal

2 Likes

I like this approach.

I think Basic option should be last (before browse) and it should be called “Other”.

This is essentially how it used to be before the library. The chooser was different (it was a dialog box with a list control) but it was essentially the same.

My opinion here is that in the properties page, you’ve already got one menu (the combo drop down) open. Would you really want another nested menu at that point?

When the material shows up, it has a combo box with the type. If we omit the library step - (since the library is now less useful) - would that be better?

Hi Andy- do you mean you’d go straight to the ‘Types’ dialog? That would be much better then we have now, in my opinion. There’s just more clicking involved than if we putting the list of types on a flyout from the + sign. Seems less clean as a workflow to me. That dialog has a lot of stuff in it compared to s simple pop-out list even if ‘Start from existing’ were also added to the list, which I guess it ought to be- (that would lead to a ‘proper’ dialog since that list could be long). I don’t think nesting another menu is a stopper in itself if it makes the process easier and smoother to use.

Anyway, thanks for listening - as long as we’re thinking about this stuff…

-Pascal

I like Pascal’s idea too, the list of types as a pop up menu on the + would be discoverable.

I’d like to remake these using the new material definitions. I’m not sure what the actual rendering engine will be though which will play a big part in what material options to use. For instance, frost and polish are too slow to use at all right now in my tests with v6 Rhino Render. The texture maps are the main thing to provide though with the material library so I’ll at least aim to make new versions in v6… I’d also like to add to the library if I can get a little more installer space :wink:

I also think the “+” button shouldn’t scroll off the bottom of the material list - it should be somewhere always visible.

Yes - that was the way it was in V4 and early V5. Remember, plug-ins can populate that list, so the menu could get pretty unwealdy. Having said that, we could list the core types and then have an “other” option that opens the “Types” dialog.

I’d rather see all the options show up in the list, sorted alphabetically for easy access.

If you put an “other” option, then people using plug-ins will always have to click two or more times to assign a material. If a user doesn’t want those options for materials in the list, make Rhino the active render plug-in.