Consider creating a Material library for Maya

[Mike_Isaakidis]

With every new project I find myself recreating the same materials over and over again (assigning textures etc..) 
Materials for e.g. wood, concrete, glass, metal for use in trim sheets or tileable textures, takes a good chunk of time every time I need to set them up. 


Ideally I would love if Maya included a correct pbr material library that users could enhance and add their own stuff. 
I imagine opening  the hypershade and already have a wide range of materials I can just drag and drop on my models and quickly preview them in Arnold. 

This could save some time for a lot of people.

[aaronfross]

For what it's worth, the Arnold Standard Surface material library is available as Attribute Editor Presets. Of course this does not include any maps.

https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AFMUG/Material+Library

[Alexx31]

I think the idea would be, to have it independent from the used renderer. Some use Vray, some Redshift, some Arnold, some different. Then it's a great idea.

I have seen, that Maya team already extends the workflow with Substance. A library could maybe connect close there.

[g2m.agent]

zoo tool pro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-RVolbAltI

[Anonymous]

That could be a really great idea!

I do not know of any feature like such in Maya, but maybe it can work if users could save a personal shader preset that can be used later as default simply by loading.

It could include texture ,bump ,displacement nodes and etc...

Maybe the tuxture files and the maps will be on the local Maya documents folder so it will be able to source them automaticly, all that the user is left to do is adjusting the attributes for best results.

Following 😃

[stevedavy]

Shader creation and management for sure is an ongoing problem, but there isn't a magic bullet for it because there are so many variables. As others have already mentioned, first of all you have the issue of which renderer is being used. Then on top of that you have so many other variables that go into what a final shader needs to do that it's incredibly rare to be able to reuse anything except the most basic base material without at least minimal adjustment between projects or assets. Since simple base materials can be saved already by just using presets, it doesn't make sense to try to create anything more complex that is only going to be useful to a handful of people. Just build your own shader library by exporting and importing them.

[damaggio]

Couldn’t agree more Steve, not to mention the fun of making your own and understanding all the connections so you can tweak on the fly, also very important to know for a possible job in a studio .

[damaggio]

that’s awesome news TJ, thanks for the update.

[Kranos_Orphydian]

any news on this ?

[damaggio]

You need to wait and see if is in the next  release....hopefully.

[Kranos_Orphydian]

this year or next ? Max already scorred some updates

[tj.galda]

Hey gang,

We're looking at this idea for sure, hence the change to accepted.  We have a number initiatives around this that all tie together.  There are some sneak peeks of that in this video, especially near the end:

https://vimeo.com/355165002

But beyond all that, having a set of examples and a library is a really good idea which we also agree with.  We have started working on that as well and want to get it right.  Thanks for suggesting it!

[Kranos_Orphydian]

@tj.galda can you give some time stamps for that video  ! Ive  watched most of the second part  but havent spoted something related.

[damaggio]

Thanks TJ for the video, the library and its integration is coming along great.

[BenediZ]

Hi Autodesk,

please develope the same tools usable for Maya and 3dsMax and try to get all functionality inside one tool.

- The same applies for asset library tools such as MAX ASSET LIBRARY.

Especially because you are fortunately lowering the prices, the number of people who will take advantages from using both softwares will constantly grow because each has own strengths.

And the more tools, libraries and workflows were adopted between both softwares, the better for streamlined workflows.

I think it should be ONE tool that covers everything instead having in the end several small tools, like one for shaders, one for assets, than it doubles again for maya & max and so on.

- Furthermore I always hope for a good Vray integration for viewport, too. Currently some shaders or utility nodes were displayed black (example Vray Layered Texture, which is much more versatile than the current native ones of Maya). I think there is no reason not trying to solve this after years.

[damaggio]

Vray is not developed by Autodesk.

[BenediZ]

you are right, damaggio. but what about the rest? 😉

[ferdinand.gleinser]

+1

Maya should come with a general material and environment library (like Keyshot) to at least quickly get you to the 80% result when the focus of your task is modeling and you can't afford to invest any time in materials and lighting.  

[Kranos_Orphydian]

hmmm, already long time since accepted but no news about this

[ferdinand.gleinser]

2023...Any update?!