Substance in 3ds Max - Corona Renderer

[cjwidd]

How is the Substance in 3ds Max plugin integration going for Corona Renderer new Physical Material?

[Galen Helfter]

Does it render if you try it? If it does, then I think we'll just need to add a new shader workflow option for it. Otherwise, we'll have to do more.

It looks like this is meant to replace the old Corona shader in entirety. Do you know if the legacy shader still works for now at least, or is the workflow script completely broken?

We're going to need to make sure it still creates the legacy one if the older Corona Renderer is installed, and makes the new one beyond a certain version.

[cjwidd]

That's a red flag if the Substance integrations team does not already know the answer to these questions. I had sincerely hoped that Substance was ahead of the curve in terms of implementing support for the new Physical Material in Corona Renderer; I heard through the grapevine that was the case.

Do you know if the legacy shader still works for now at least, or is the workflow script completely broken?

Legacy shader support is not broken, so far.

[...] and makes the new one beyond a certain version.

The new Physical Material is a total rewrite of the Legacy Material and includes significant updates to reflection / refraction glossiness, fIOR, and more - the Physical Material will break compatibility with the Substance to 3ds Max plugin if certain parameters are not respected.

[Galen Helfter]

You heard correctly, I made the mistake of not associating an email chain with this and that's my mistake.

We are actually in conversation with them about aligning Substance with it, which I've now caught up on and read since the previous post. We're aligning on general export and workflow for Painter mainly right now, but we will be able to work with their team to ensure we've got the proper workflow for the 3ds Max integration with their new shader model while we're doing that.

It does look like it will break compatibility, especially if the legacy node object is not available anymore. So we'll want to address this and have it ready while we're aligning with it on everything else. I do have their shader specification, so we should be able to work with that.

I'm going to work with the demo art team and with the Corona team, to make sure we have a proper representation. Since we'll be redesigning how the workflow works, we can handle imports from our other software and have documentation on how that script works and what it's doing, and to try to match it to explanation of what to do with outputs from our main software. Since you're interested in ensuring that being the case, this would be a natural opportunity to ensure our documentation, workflow script and all are aligned.

[cjwidd]

I'm going to work with the demo art team and with the Corona team, to make sure we have a proper representation. Since we'll be redesigning how the workflow works, we can handle imports from our other software and have documentation on how that script works and what it's doing, and to try to match it to explanation of what to do with outputs from our main software. Since you're interested in ensuring that being the case, this would be a natural opportunity to ensure our documentation, workflow script and all are aligned.

That sounds like a strong plan to move forward, but those development goals will need to be met with tangible results and delivered in a timely manner for the user base to actually make use of updates and new features.

I hope the integrations team are able to capitalize on this opportunity to right the course of the Substance in 3ds Max plugin, which has been languishing for some time now. The Substance in 3ds Max plugin is the key to unlocking access to the massive substance library for rendering in 3ds Max and Corona Renderer, I hope future development respects the seriousness of that opportunity for the Substance user base.

In the interest of transparency, a good idea would be to maintain a public Trello board to document the pace and scope of development for the Substance in 3ds Max plugin, or some other public-facing task management system to keep users informed.