Marmoset Toolbag Wishlist
mod
I've been talking with the guys at 8ml about the growing popularity of Toolbag, and just wanted the throw this out there.
Alright, so first off, this thread is not a promise nor an agreement that any of your wildest dreams will ever come true. Please try to keep this reasonable, be descriptive as possible with any feature you would like to see. Try to limit this to actual feature requests and not bug fixes. READ THE THREAD BEFORE YOU POST, please dear god do not post the same feature request as someone above you, or this will turn into a 30 page thread. Expanding on an idea/feature *can* be a good thing, but please refrain from 12,000 single sentence posts that say "gloss maps lol".
Stating a feature, and explaining exactly how you would like to see it implemented is a very good thing. Asking for toolbag to run on a ATI deadbadger(TM) with redhat5 installed on your Pentium 3 is not a realistic request. Try to keep in mind what is realistic in the scope of the program(a light, simple straight-forward model viewer).
Finally, just to gauge general interest, would anyone consider paying for a new-and-improved Toolbag, for example with better UI, features, etc. Please be honest about this, would you actually *pay* for it, not would you steal it from the internet(if it is something you would steal from the internet, that is worth mentioning as well). I'm talking reasonable price here, i won't get specific with price as i dont really have any part in development with the tool myself, but it would likely be priced very modestly.
Alright, so first off, this thread is not a promise nor an agreement that any of your wildest dreams will ever come true. Please try to keep this reasonable, be descriptive as possible with any feature you would like to see. Try to limit this to actual feature requests and not bug fixes. READ THE THREAD BEFORE YOU POST, please dear god do not post the same feature request as someone above you, or this will turn into a 30 page thread. Expanding on an idea/feature *can* be a good thing, but please refrain from 12,000 single sentence posts that say "gloss maps lol".
Stating a feature, and explaining exactly how you would like to see it implemented is a very good thing. Asking for toolbag to run on a ATI deadbadger(TM) with redhat5 installed on your Pentium 3 is not a realistic request. Try to keep in mind what is realistic in the scope of the program(a light, simple straight-forward model viewer).
Finally, just to gauge general interest, would anyone consider paying for a new-and-improved Toolbag, for example with better UI, features, etc. Please be honest about this, would you actually *pay* for it, not would you steal it from the internet(if it is something you would steal from the internet, that is worth mentioning as well). I'm talking reasonable price here, i won't get specific with price as i dont really have any part in development with the tool myself, but it would likely be priced very modestly.
Replies
:nuff said
+editable light setup
:some way to edit the image based lighting- so you could do things like define a strong back light, add a specific image to the reflections -etc.
How: make the model spin around, and capture it in the act of spinning in the form of an avi or qt.
And yes, I would pay, for a pc AND mac version.
-Definable directional/spot/point lights.
Position, Direction, Intensity, Color, Inner/Outer Falloff, etc.
-More post effect goodness. Vignetting, Film Grain, Wide screen borders, other cool stuff
+native .mesh exporters for other programs.
I try to avoid opening maya whenever I can. Max, XSI, blender whatever, just some more export options. OBJ works fine but the native .mesh is probably better.
+changes to bloom
The bloom has always bothered me, it's quite jagged and messy looking. Just up the amount of samples or whatever.
+lens/shiny stuff shader
Scope lenses and chrome are a bit difficult to define with the existing ambient cubemaps. Some form of shader option for shiny stuff with crisp reflections would be nice.
Marmoset is enough of an instant awesome app for presenting models that I'd pay a little bit of dollah for it, especially if it has an improved UI.
- Define export image size in a text box, not through console command
- Define shadows resolution in a text box, not through console command
- Define background color by RGB numbers in a text box, not only by eyedropper
- Alpha support, possibly for post effects too like bloom
- Anti aliased screen shots, maybe like ZBrush at 50% of original size to make it simple
- A little more clear command to take shots, not only F12
- Define the screen shots destination directory
Scene framing:
- A "Safe Frame" (see 3ds Max) like set of lines to define how screen shot will look like, which shows the relation between the software viewport and the screen shot size/format
- Maybe a tweakable reference grid to better frame/center the mesh in the viewport
- Define camera position in space by numbers/spinners like latitude/longitude. It allows consistent screen shots all around the mesh
- Maybe an option to "attach" current light setup in scene to camera position and direction. This would give the impression to rotate the mesh rather than orbiting the camera
Lighting support:
- Define more than one light with all its parameters, like tint, intensity and so on
Maps:
- Support for Emissive/Glow maps
- Checkboxes to flip/swap Red and Green channels in Normal maps
General improvement:
- A little more "handy" support for software window dimension: resizable, draggable as standard ones
- Don't keep 1 thread/process at its 100% CPU
I'm not sure if I'd pay for this as I'd use it only while texturing and for final presentation, which are an important but quite limited part of my daily work. Don't think I'd steal it, more reasonably I'd stick with the current one, or start using/writing my own HLSL shaders for 3ds Max.
I'll update this post if other things come to mind. Thanks.
For me as a freelancer i wish i could have more control over certain things, such aus:
UI:
- give it some scrollbars, if you have couple of models they just move over other buttos which makes it hard to select stuff.
- add the possibility to output images in your preferred size and to the preferred output directory, i guess 50% AA fake is not really needed built in as you can do that in Ppst anyways, depending on if you want to cut out your model and put it on another background having model antialiased in the output image is kinda contraproductive
- +1 to RGB in the textbox not only via eyedropper
Maps:
- Glossiness Map
- SSS Map
- Emissive Map
- Control over the Ramp thats used to influence the shading would be nice
Shaders:
- possibility to import your own HLSL Shaders, i guess this is a more advanced feature would be handy for preproduction to define a certain look, or hardcore guys who really want to fiddle around and change stuff
well haven't used it in a while so i might open it up once i'm back home mybe i can think of more.
-gloss map
-Better shadows
-shortcuts for reloading textures and/or auto texture reloagind (this way i can texture in photoshop and see the changes quickly in toolbag)
Iguess thats what is currently missing for me. Thanks 8Ml for asking us
-Support for overlapping UVs
-'pauses' when not the selected window, eats up too much cpu when not in use.
-Improved alpha support
Btw. i would steal that shit off the internetz
-animation import,so we could make turntable of not only standing figure but also moving,
-multiple object,maybe limited,but not only one,for character,weapon,and pedestal maybe?
i'd pay!yep!gladly!:D
Sorry if I too am being redundant at this point. The main thing I wanted to mention is I like the simplicity of Marmoset as it is.
To avoid TOO many features that could make things difficult, (multiple lights, types of lights, environment map tweaks, etc.)
I think it would be really cool if Marmoset upgraded the available map slots and then had two versions to choose from.
-A "lite" version, where you had Marmoset very similar to the way it is now, plus more texture slots.
-And a "Advanced" version, where you can add multiple lights, and really tweak the hell out of stuff.
I think this would give it a lot of flexibility but still meet the needs of everyone across the table.
But Yeah, I would pay for a professional game art viewing app. Reasonable price to me would be anywhere from $100-200 possibly even $300 per license.
As it stands currently - someone can use UDK for full-on scenes, and its free, but the price is learning the tool (there is also the added recognition/respect the Unreal engine carries) - for basic previews there are realtime viewport shaders. Toolbag has to offer something unique.
I think it would be great to offer something unique that leverages the best parts of things we already have and combines them. How about a viewer app that can easily transport and preview entire scenes. Maybe it would use light placements from maya or max, and you could tag geometry in your modeling app for material assignment in Toolbag. (I would pay around $150 for an app like that)
Ease of workflow is a big deal - and I don't think there is room for just another 'previewer' in the current marketplace unless its free.
Now it's possible, I don't know how to properly setup a scene in UDK, but to me, my normals always look rather flat in Unreal.
Put it this way... everyone knows that game art is all about the texture work. And if your end result is substantially better in one app versus another it can make all the difference in the world. There are thousands of people who graduate from game art universities every year. I would bet that a large percentage of these individuals would be willing to pay $100-300 if it meant the difference between their work looking sub-par or really good.
All I'm saying is if it's worth it to me, I'm sure there are many others out there that would be willing to pay this amount. When you're trying to break into the games industry you need every advantage you can get. And if a $300.00 dollar investment makes the difference, why wouldn't you pay it?
The already mentioned features sound really good. For me to actually want to buy this ease of use would be key, the current toolbag is fairly easy but I could imagine it being even easier if these issues are addressed. just an updated UI with easy handling of objects and textures like what you have in cinema4ds objects panel on the side(the best layer system Ive personally experienced). An easy installer that puts all the files in the right place and allows you to save and load any model and textures and all post settings without fiddling with which folder the source files are in.
Better or simpler alpha map support
More preset skys or better lights and shadows as people have already said
perhaps SSAO of some sort as this is seeming fairly common these days
I realise some requests we are making are a bit rediculous as they would require something like a lighting engine rewrite.
Edit> sorry, I can't add to any feature suggestions that have already been mentioned.
Efficiency/speed is the highest thing on my list (which I guess is the same thing as ease of use). Its the main reason I use marmoset now. Would be nice if you could set default folders for each button and set default settings for everything.
Also when you start it up I think there should be an option to open the material editor by default and for the "open mesh" dialogue to popup by itself.
For example, this is what I do each time I load something:
1) Click material editor on the menu screen
2) Click open mesh
3) Using directfolders to navigate, access my .obj in 2 clicks and then load the model
4) Set the mesh scale to 0.08
5) Click on render tab
6) Disable bloom
7) Click "open post"
8) Navigate to the "post folder" which is bookmarked using directfolders
9) Load my own "default" post file
10) Click the mat tab and load each texture in each slot
This is how it "should" be done:
1) As soon as marmoset is loaded, it starts off in the material editor and the open mesh dialogue automatically pops up starting at a default folder set by you (should be a option to do this, for those who use more than the material editor)
2) Find your model to load, once loaded it should by default be set to whatever scale you want (0.08 in my case)
3) The diffuse material window should also popup automatically after loading the model, to save clicking on "mat" and then "diffuse map" buttons. This should be followed up by whatever else maps you wanna use popping up too using the same path as the diffuse - all these automatic popups should be OPTIONAL, thats the key. Don't wanna annoy people who dont want this feature for every slot
Maybe instead of all these popups, it could detect the spec/normal/glow/whatever maps based on the name of the diffuse and automatically load them all. It'll encourage people to name their maps in a unified way (blabla(or _diff, or _diffuse).tga, blabla_spec(or specular).tga, blabla_norm(or normal or nm).tga. Or just let the user set the naming convention they use for it to be detected.
All my render settings should be saved as default so I shouldnt even need to click the render tab at all (unless of course I wanted to play with the post effects)
Another thing that would be nice is if the windows "maximize screen" and "exit" buttons on the top right work, instead of editing the config file with a manual screen res and clicking file>exit to tools menu>quit to close.
I support everyone else's suggestions so far. Here's some I don't think have been mentioned. Edit: Some of them have and I was just not reading closely enough, oh well.
Automatic alpha channel generation
When I save screenshots from marmoset I'm always going to be trying to remove the background. What I usually have to do is change my background to black and make my materials white and take an additional shot for each pose/angle to get it cleanly removed from its background colour.
Cameras(screen recording?) or a way to save camera positions. A simple turnaround animation built in.
I was crazy enough in the past to import turntable animations for my models and screen record marmoset to put in my old demo reel. While it worked, it was hardly ideal. I think one thing that could set Marmoset apart from UDK or viewport shaders would be the ability to set up cameras and take videos as well as still shots. By extension, having a built in "spin on Y(or Z) axis" control would be very handy and eliminate the need to go through the entire steps of importing an animation.
Edit: well I actually had to use the toolbag today and after that I came up with some more things that would be nice.
-Being able to type the exact values you want into the scroll bars.
-A wireframe view mode (untriangulated, if that's possible)
-Ability to change the SSS colour in case you are working with something other than humans or you want an interesting effect.
-A slot for an external alpha map instead of having it as a channel in the diffuse map.
-Alpha Blending