topic Re: Bugs: Material Editor Preview - Arnold - MAX'18 [latest ver. as of post] in 3ds Max Forum

Bugs: Material Editor Preview - Arnold - MAX'18 [latest ver. as of post]

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 03:42:27 GMT

When previewing Arnold materials in the material editors, the Arnold material system has two major issues:

Material Previews: Transparent Background Viewing - please see this video for visual demonstration of the issue. https://youtu.be/cqS7bf96kjw
Material Previews: Black Unrendered previews. This is a common issue that many have come across. It is where the materials previews remain completely black for the Arnold materials in the scene. My issue is a lot more severe and may uncover the issue at heart (which is good if you want to fix anything!! Means a better future...)

In Detail - Issue 1:

The Transparent Background toggle adds a blue hue to the material's preview window. This issue is entirely contained to within the material/previews system, not affecting the color of the final render.

The material previews renderer is sampling one of the blue squares (which make up the transparency checkerboard behind the object) for one of the rendering calculations - possibly global light or environment lighting. This assumption was derived from the fact the color blue is similar to the blue on the background, lol.

This makes it impossible for an artist to judge how their material will appear in a given scene. See below for my current workaround.

In Detail - Issue 2:

The Arnold materials may have trouble rendering on occasion due to renderer conflicts poorly assigned by the user. On occasion however, some scenes in 3DS max may have used a different material library from an older version of 3DSMax. After scene conversion the scene may work temporarily and then have material previews lose functionality. I have not found a solution to this, and instead of round tripping assets out of a project through export and then re-import materials back into a new scene - I instead saw it as an opportunity to restart my scene from scratch and experiment with a new execution method.

Of course usually most users will opt for exporting assets without any texturing included with the file/or replaced with standard textures, then reimported into a fresh scene to apply new arnold materials to.

My workaround for Issue 1:

With a second instance of 3DSMax I load a scene that simulates what the material preview shows in the MaterialEditor (I have physically rebuilt the material editor preview scene manually, and created my own checkerboard which I can hide and unhide).

I then apply materials to the target sphere and compare the effects by rendering with activeshade.

This method gives additional functionality beyond Material Editor's offering at of course less convenience.

Of course I'd like to see these issues ironed out over time, however I have another interest also.

I'm curious to know more about the material editor preview, and exactly how it is constructed so that I can compare what I have currently.

I'd like to thank you for your time reading my message. Have a pleasant day.

Regards.

Re: Bugs: Material Editor Preview - Arnold - MAX'18 [latest ver. as of post]

Anonymous — Tue, 22 May 2018 14:57:17 GMT

This is still an issue in 2019 with Arnold.

Material previews are blue with arnold.

I've had to switch my material editor to ART to get a better idea what the materials actually look like.

It's not just a blue tint, when you preview a material like chrome it looks like a solid blue glossy orb with no reflection of the checkerboard in the surface. When I switch to ART render it's noisey but it shows the reflection in the surface and its no longer blue.

I was using physical materials, I think it also happens with Arnold materials but haven't tried it in 2019

hoping for a fix soon.

Thanks

Re: Bugs: Material Editor Preview - Arnold - MAX'18 [latest ver. as of post]

RGhost77 — Tue, 22 May 2018 17:52:54 GMT

Yeah, previewing Arnold materials and maps not working properly.

Interesting would be it fixed or not.... in past half year MAXtoA development is very slowwwww....

Re: Bugs: Material Editor Preview - Arnold - MAX'18 [latest ver. as of post]

randal.junior — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 14:10:12 GMT

Having the same problem here.

Still a issue on MAXtoA 2.1.945, and even from fresh created scene.

Re: Bugs: Material Editor Preview - Arnold - MAX'18 [latest ver. as of post]

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 07:36:48 GMT

I am experiencing this too... there must be a fix or work around, it's not possible that this is just the way it is... it's like saying when I create a box I actually get a sphere... and it's just a bug. Has there been any talk on this subject? Blue shaders are just not an option.

Frank