ice-boy opened this issue on Apr 25, 2011 ยท 111 posts
bagginsbill posted Sun, 01 May 2011 at 9:41 AM
No need to apologize to me when noting that nodes don't help people. I don't need nodes, I don't want them, and I don't use them. I write shaders as what they are - software. My matmatic converts them into the language of nodes, not because that is desirable, but because it's all we're offered. I have to do it that way. I'd much prefer to just write the shader as a C++ component and give it to you as a fait accompli.
The premise of nodes is you have the freedom to make it do anything, with training wheels so you can't fall down. You may not get what you want, but it will never crash. That's not true of free-form software components. And the sad thing is the training wheels limit you. You can't actually build any sort of material with Poser nodes, because some things are just impossible to say. The language of the nodes is too restrictive. There are no light loops, I can't directly get at certain key things like launching my own rays, so a good number of physical phenomena simply can't be implemented as is.
The reality is that a physically correct shader is a lot of math, and the math should be left to developers, not artists. (Unless you're Da Vinci - then you do both.)
This is the belief system shown to work for LuxRender et al. A handful of brainiacs produce a new built-in shader, and the rest of the people have no idea how it works, but they can plug in the color map, dial in the "shine", and it looks great.
I would not like to see Poser become "closed" like that - some dynamic component assembly is great. What I would like is for me, a software developer, to produce a new "Poser Surface" - or maybe 100 new ones - and skip all the nodes just to create the fundamental nature of the material - glass, metal, plastic, etc. The nodes are very cool for patterns and such, but not cool at all for the actual interaction with light.
Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)