Material System category

Current implementation shows only the material that is applied to object that I have selected.

However when I want to create a file that contains only materials, I have to create object to assign them to so that Blender will save them.

And there is no one view that will show me all the materials in the scene. Most applications have the ability to create and view all materials without even applying them to objects.

Having a window view that would show all materials using thumbnails would help.

Additionally the ability to see which object is assigned to given material. Currently this is complicated if not borderline impossible. Sometimes during creation of meshes, i create a few materials.001 and i don't recollect which object has that material. So i have to go through a bunch of objects (and also look through objects that have various materials assigned) to identify where it is to correct the assignment.

One addition that could be welcomed is a shader that reacts to particles.

Seen something like this in Cinema4D.

Useful for using it as a displacement map and shooting bullets. Instant dents to the object ;) Also good for shield effects.

Basically, the proximity shader looks at the designated emmiter, and based on how close a particle is to the surface of the object which (which the shader is applied to) make a spot on a texture (Grey scale is sufficent). This then can be applied to just about any type of node. :D

Example for using it would be as following:
bullet impact:
1st emitter shoots a "bullet"
upon impact, bullet particle is eliminated. It triggers a new emitter (object it impacts) to spawn a new particle. This new particle is used on the proximity shader which is applied as displacement creating a dent.

shield effect:
1st emitter shoots a "plasma bullet"
upon impact, plasma bullet particle is eliminated. It triggers a new emitter (object it impacts) to spawn a new particle which slowly moves away from the surface. This new particle is used on the proximity shader which is applied as alpha channel creating a "shield impact" effect. Why moving away, because then it looks like the impact triggered a huge reaction afterward is shrinks as times proceeds.

this can be simplified. it is something that could improve some SFX.

Blender has Normal Mapping. Why not have Parallax or even Parallax Occlusion Mapping? With shadows and some AO. If you look at a Bump texture only lit by the AO you don´t see any roughness. This is only visible with specularity or directional light. So AO for Bump maps would help.
Also Shadow would be visible.

Like this:
http://www.crysis-online.com/images/news/CryEngine2/crytek_parallax_occlusion_m apping_enhanced.jpg
http://graphics.cs.brown.edu/games/SteepParallax/compare.jpg

I don´t think i have to explain why Parallax Mapping would look better.

Right, at this time, the mirror/Transp panel is in one ! and it begin to be too height !

Maybe 2 panels may be welcome !

The Halo shader is currently only limited to verticies. It would be nice if there were an option to apply the same shader effect to edges rather then verticies.

There have been several instances where I've used the Halo for effects like neon light, but it's a real pain because you have to split edges up many many times to get the desired effect, and even then you have problems with the physical scale of the object, and different densities of the verticies along the subdivided edges.

Would probably mean disabling some of the options like "star" with this option enabled.

The toon shader shadow is always black. I have saw some people complainig about it too. I would suggest to do like the toon shader shiningness interface. It would be a bar for the shadow power/intensity. setting the bar to a low value would make the shadow more weaker,until it became the color of the material, and setting it with a high value would incress the shadow power, making it darker, until it became black.

I and others really needed this feature in ours toon projects. I only want a better tool for me and for all.

Do you know this? You have an object and e.g. "MA: metal" assigned to it. You have a few polygons that should have the eg. "MA: mirror" material assigned, which you already created. Now you add another material, "MA: metal.001" is created automatically.

Why not only leaving it empty, for the user to asign a material, like when you delete a material with "delete link to this datablock". There is still an unassigned material in the editing buttons (F9) "Link and Materials".

If for example you have 15 materials on a mesh, clicking the next index button while on index 15 should take you to index 1, instead of doing nothing and forcing you to click all the way back through the indices to return to 1.

At the moment if you lay a polygon half outside the UV space, the texture for that "outside" space will be from the opposite side of the texture image (if repeat is on). What I want is a texture repeat option to make it so that the "outside" space flips back on itself. Here's an image of what I mean:

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j62/drain-body-confirmed/mirroruv.jpg

This technique is used a lot in games to conserve texture space/polys and it would be great if Blender could do it.

Now, if you want to copy a color in the color band ramp (texture or material panel) you have to add a color and copy the Hex code. It could be much simpler if we can duplicate this color with Shift-D (like meshes in the 3D view).

Summary: Create an online database of materials in much the same way that http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/ provides one click access to some stunning materials.

Implementation:
* http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/
* One click material download.
* Possible voting?
* Possible side application or in-Blender access to the library?

then you could generate a colour gradient in the gimp and use it to shade an objects in blender.