Materials Management Tool - Are you interested?

#1 What's so special about an industrial strenght materials management system as apposed to a materials management system that just works? It's not exactly rocket science, but I'm curious what features you think make it industrial strenght. I would be interested in paying for such a product depending on that.

#2 Doesn't the Overlord tool for sale on this site have file management facilities (plus project management etc)? Price 29.95 USD.

#3 It's a Material Management Tool, Dave.

#4 What exactly do you see as the problem?

#5 Most people, I think, organize the folders efficiently, which is easy to use. Each asset has it's own folder, with a sub-folder of the actual model, a sub-folder of the textures, and possibly a sub-folder for the other materials and textures that are used. Some people also sort by the mission in which each is used. Basically Folders can be used effectively in order for better organization. Now, I do think that a material organizer might be nice, but I'm not sure if you mean for in-game purposes or maybe as separate program that would do everything. Also, does this extend to managing the torquescript to manage the executing of other scripts and use of the materials? I guess it has to do with the level of control you would want to put into such a tool.

#6 What I'm talking about isn't much of a problem for small projects, but it's a real bear when a lot of people are involved. Here's a very simple diagram to help illustrate. With many people involved, and concerns of what modifications impact what scene elements, it can be hairy stuff. (Consider fielding questions like, "Why don't my character's eyes sparkle the same way that other character's does? After all, I thought I was using the same material.")

Note that this is not particular to TGEA -- it's an issue that's been getting gradually more complex as desktop graphics capabilities have evolved. It's also more complex than basic asset management, because materials systems (in both game engines and rendering packages) are becoming more complex. Perhaps parametric asset management would be an apt term? ;-)

I certainly don't have a clean solution to this problem; I only know that it's starting to rear its head here.

Tom

#7 Stefan..doh! Thanks :-)

#8 @Thomas Phillips

I think a smart material management solution would kicks ass. I love the way TGB does it. I think a nice plugin to TGEA (kinda like the lighting solution before it got plugged into TGE 1.5) would be cool. And it's definitely worth paying for. I'd pay $20-$50 for one if it was really nice to use. I can imagine it would save me a lot more than an hour of my time in dollars, so, I'd happily pay. Some people will complain about paying for this and you just gotta ignore people who are that cheap.

#9 I can't tell you all the features it needs (not being an artist, and not having managed a production phase of a project that would need this), but I can tell you that yes, this is a very needed system, and would be worth the cost if well developed.

Some features I -can- tell you that should be included:

--integrated source control (communicates with SVN, CVS, what have you)
----at a minimum gives revision info from update logs
----best possible: allow for merging into main branch from the art-dev branch as artwork is approved

--some form of "tagging" system where artwork is tied together by a consistent system. Similar to simple naming conventions, but if you can find a way to store meta-info about assets in a searchable dataset, and then export the appropriate file system and contents (script, textures, shaders), that would rock

--integration possible with project management systems (such as Overlord mentioned above). One of the biggest problems with "best of breed" applications is that project managers want one tool to do their work, yet get forced to use 7. Makes their jobs easier if at least those tools can work with each other.

#10 I agree with a lot of what has already been said, but I don't think industrial strength is called for so much as specificity to Torque.

Here are some more items for your wish list...

- the ability to snarf the textures used by DIF and DTS models directly from the DIF and DTS files
- ability to jam different texture names into DIF or DTS binary assuming the new name is shorter than the old
- the ability to parse Torquescript and identify any reference within the script to material related files
- the ability to walk through the MOD folder and collect the names of all art assets
- the ability to identify duplicate copies of same, delete one of them, and fix the script to accomodate
- the ability to flag name clashes that are not identical files
- some photoshop plugins that can be used to 'compile' layered photoshop files into PNG files or DDS files
that match what is expected by the Torque materials system
- the ability to inventory shaders in a mod folder and correlate their usage within the scripts
- the ability to generate material definitions using point and click on the images in your mod
- simulated display of what the generated material will look like in the engine
- a 3DS material library plugin that automatically stays in sync with the contents of your mod folder
- 3DS max rendering pluging that lets you see approximately what TGEA will look like using 3DS DX9 shaders

I neglected sound a lot in those points, but the tools should work with audio assets as well as graphical assets.

I'd pay two figures for something like that, and it's more along the lines of some glue to bind existing things together than a massive system in it's own right. Different people already have their own ways of dealing with parts of the problem, and getting them to switch to something new might be an uphill battle. Getting them to add something in that fills in the gaps would be a lot easier.

Thanks for asking. It's always nice to have an opportunity to wish for something :-)

#11 I'd definitely like to see something like this and pay for it too, provided one particular feature is done: Either through making it a set of GUIs/scripts or whatever, I'd like to see the ability to preview a material in engine. That's basically the main requirement for me :p