Marmoset Toolbag to Maya

davidbk

I'm new to PBR, Marmoset and real-time rendering. I'd like to render out a sequence in Maya using the Hardware 2.0 renderer, and I'm wondering if it's possible to pass shaders from Marmoset to Maya for real-time/Hardware rendering. I understand the DX11 shader in Maya is similar to the PBR shaders in Marmoset. Is this correct? Where can I find info on passing shaders from one application to the other?

EarthQuake

Can you clarify what you mean by "pass shaders"?

davidbk

Hey, yeah, well I guess I'm not exactly sure what Marmoset Toolbag really excels at, and I need some clarification myself. I haven't had the chance to play around with it, and I'm not sure if I'm going off on a tangent here, but I've seen amazing results produced with Marmoset and PBR materials. After doing a bit of research I learned that you can actually use Maya Viewport 2.0 and some of its own shaders, like the DX11 as I mentioned above, to get similar quality in real-time.

Is it correct of me to assume that Marmoset is used for building shading networks -- which end up defining the overall look of the material (ie. it builds the networks that define the maps, node connections, and the way they contribute to albedo, microsurface, reflectivity, fresnel, etc). Therefore, is it possible to create these shading networks in Marmoset, and then import them in Maya so that the materials essentially look the same in Maya Viewport 2.0?

My goal is to explore Hardware rendering in Maya for film production and I'm looking for tools to help me build my materials. I'd like to have access to a larger database of material presets, scans and shading networks and my guess is that Marmoset might have these? Maybe this is an incorrect assumption? Maybe I'd be better off with something else like Substance. But yeah, I want all of these things to be view-able in realtime in the Maya Viewport.

So yeah, is it possible to build shaders in Marmoset and pass them over to Maya so that the shading networks are still intact and also look and feel the same in realtime as they do in Marmoset? I apologize if I'm mixing things up in my terminology and approach. Maybe this is an unconventional way of doing things, but I'm open to a bit of experimentation.

PS. I found this interesting tutorial about using Maya Viewport 2.0 for film production (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ1NqWUS7qo). The workflow looks like it has a lot of potential and I guess I'm just looking for ways of pushing it further and adding realism to the final images through more sophisticated shaders, although I'm not yet sure where they would originate from. Marmoset or somewhere else?

EarthQuake

Hey, thanks for the detailed response.

Marmoset Toolbag is a self-contained real-time rendering and scene building tool. Generally speaking, the workflow would be to create your models in Maya, textures in your image editing application (Photoshop, Substance, Quixel, etc), and then load that content in Toolbag and set up your materials, lighting, and new with Toolbag 3 (which will be out on Friday), animations as well.

Toolbag 3 has some built in features to export meshes and materials to Unity, and Unreal Engine, but we don't have anything like that for Maya at the moment. Usually people want to send content from Maya to Toolbag, rather than the reverse, but what you're suggesting is interesting nonetheless.

Thanks again!