Ideally the materials thread would start with a post that includes the materials sample scene to render all materials in. It would include lighting set correctly, and the test object(s), e.g. built-in sphere. I would suggest either having several different scenes for different scales, or including multiple scales in a single scene, each with its own camera and renderer, so that you can easily render out views of the material at each scale. You could even use a null to (I think) let you connect the output of your material shader(s) to the multiple spheres at different scales very easily, without having to connect each one.
I think it should be considered that a single material sample might not work for all needs. Scale is one clear indication of that, the sheer range of scales in TG is much broader than most applications (e.g. 100 meter rock cracks will not be usefully shown on a 1m sphere). Being able to show displaced and non-displaced samples would also be nice. So it may be best to settle on a standard "swatch" of multiple renders to show each material, e.g. with and without displacement, different scales of sphere. Not too many variations! Just a few, maybe 3-5.
It's also an interesting question to me whether we are talking here about basic "material" types (e.g. metals, simple rock types, etc.) or more complex effect type stuff, e.g. the aforementioned "100 meter rock cracks". There are already threads that share some of the latter type stuff, you know? So... interesting consideration.
- Oshyan
