I propose that InfraWorks switch to a BRDF based PBR shader system for material representation in the viewport. You can read more about this material shading paradigm here:
https://marmoset.co/posts/physically-based-rendering-and-you-can-too/
https://www.allegorithmic.com/pbr-guide
https://disney-animation.s3.amazonaws.com/library/s2012_pbs_disney_brdf_notes_v2.pdf
This would address several deficiencies in the way InfraWorks displays surface materials in the viewport and would provide a linear path towards supporting rendering with a third party rendering system such as V-Ray or Arnold. In addition, supporting PBR materials in InfraWorks would facility much better interoperability between 3d modeling applications such as 3ds max. For instance, you could build a model utilizing the Physical Material, which is an idealized PBR material, export to InfraWorks with a 1 to 1 material look. From InfraWorks, you should be able to export back to 3ds max via FBX and render directly with no modification using either V-Ray, Arnold, Corona, the Autodesk Ray Tracer (ART) or nearly any modern renderer. Even better, you should be able to open the FBX in Unity (soon) and have an ideal PBR material with no conversions as opposed to the current method which requires the user to rework the materials from a Standard Material model.
In order for this PBR material exchange to work most effectively, I would also recommend that ALL the Autodesk materials move to a PBR shading model. Then you could exchange materials between any of the Autodesk applications.
