Re: [x3dom-developers] Maya/RawKee export for X3DOM Material node

[Andreas P. <and...@gm...>]

Hi Aaron,

That looks good. I noticed that the sword example only uses a diffuse
texture. The CommonSurfaceShader and new Material nodes really only provide
an improvement over regular Material if additional textures like a normal
texture are also provided.
Would the exporter provide textures other than diffuse if available in the
Maya model ? CommonSurfaceShader supports normal, shininess, and specular
textures.

-Andreas

On Sat, Mar 15, 2025 at 4:52 PM Bergstrom, Aaron <aar...@un...>
wrote:

> Andreas,
>
>
>
> The more I dug into it, the more I realized that it would just be easiest
> to check the encoding at the time of export, and write out a
> CommonSurfaceShader node instead of the Material node if the encoding was
> ‘html’.
>
>
>
> So that’s what it does. I changed very little code to make it work… so it
> didn’t take me nearly as long as I expected that it would.
>
>
>
> See an HTML version of the Sword model exported using RawKee for Maya that
> uses a CommonSurfaceShader instead of a Material node. Same URL as before:
>
> https://vr.csgrid.org/x3dom/swordtest.html
>
>
>
> To compare it to what it looks like in Maya, see this screenshot:
>
> https://vr.csgrid.org/x3dom/maya-screenshot.png
>
>
>
> Looks nearly identical to what is displayed in Maya, so I’m pretty happy
> with the results.
>
>
>
> If you check the HTML source of swordtest.html, you’ll see it uses a
> CommonSurfaceShader.
>
>
>
> I’m only exporting Material/CommonSurfaceShader for Maya Phong, PhongE,
> Blinn, and Lambert shaders. Otherwise the exporter defaults to
> PhysicalMaterial nodes for all other Maya shaders no matter the X3D
> encoding (XML, VRML, JSON, or HTML).
>
>
>
> I need to do a bit of more code work yet to tighten up my PhysicalMaterial
> node export, but that doesn’t affect the swordtest.html example using
> CommonSurfaceShader.
>
>
>
> Aaron
>
>
>
> *From:* Bergstrom, Aaron
> *Sent:* Friday, March 14, 2025 9:49 AM
> *To:* Andreas Plesch <and...@gm...>
> *Cc:* x3d...@li...
> *Subject:* RE: [x3dom-developers] Maya/RawKee export for X3DOM Material
> node
>
>
>
> Excellent, I can make that approach work too.
>
>
>
> Aaron
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Andreas Plesch <and...@gm...>
> *Sent:* Friday, March 14, 2025 9:45 AM
> *To:* Bergstrom, Aaron <aar...@un...>
> *Cc:* x3d...@li...
> *Subject:* Re: [x3dom-developers] Maya/RawKee export for X3DOM Material
> node
>
>
>
> Hi Aaron,
>
>
>
> While CommonSurfaceShader would indeed be the basis for an updated
> Material node, I do not think that such updating could occur in the near or
> medium term future.
>
>
>
> So you were right the first time and a CommonSurfaceShader option for
> RawKee would be great to have if possible.
>
>
>
> Yes, CommonSurfaceShader would be added to the MFNode Appearance.shaders
> field.
>
>
>
> It is a MFNode field to be able to contain fallbacks, in order of
> preference:
> https://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3Dv4Draft/ISO-IEC19775-1v4.1-CD//Part01/components/shaders.html#Selecting
> <https://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3Dv4Draft/ISO-IEC19775-1v4.1-CD/Part01/components/shaders.html#Selecting>
>
>
>
> I think providing such fallbacks occurs very rarely in practice, and is
> perhaps not supported by most x3d browsers. I am not aware of an example.
>
>
>
> All the best, -Andreas
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 14, 2025 at 10:30 AM Bergstrom, Aaron <aar...@un...>
> wrote:
>
> Andreas,
>
>
>
> Oops, I misunderstood your email.
>
>
>
> I see that you were proposing CommonSurfaceShader as the basis for an
> updated Material node.
>
>
>
> So change what I just said, for now I will add an export option that
> allows the user to select the export type they want to use:
>
>    - Material (old style with textures added to Appearance)
>    - Material (new style with textures in the material node)
>    - PhysicalMaterial
>
>
>
> Aaron
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Bergstrom, Aaron <aar...@un...>
> *Sent:* Friday, March 14, 2025 8:59 AM
> *To:* Andreas Plesch <and...@gm...>
> *Cc:* x3d...@li...
> *Subject:* Re: [x3dom-developers] Maya/RawKee export for X3DOM Material
> node
>
>
>
> Andreas,
>
>
>
> Thank you for this.
>
>
>
> Based on your feedback, for at least the older shader types in Maya, I’ll
> add an export option allowing the user to pick which method they want to
> use for exporting a shader, either:
>
>    - Material (old style with textures added to Appearance)
>    - Material (new style with textures in the material node)
>    - PhysicalMaterial
>    - CommonSurfaceShader
>
>
>
> It’ll probably take me a few days to re-write that section of the exporter
> code, but I should have the change completed by the end of the month.
>
>
>
> I would assume that “CommonSurfaceShader” would be added to the “shaders”
> field of the Appearance node. However, I see that “shaders” is an MFNode
> field. Do you have an example/tutorial of how multiple shaders are used, or
> is having multiple shaders not common? Why is “shaders” an MFNode field and
> not an SFNode field?
>
>
>
> Aaron
>
>
>
> *From:* Andreas Plesch <and...@gm...>
> *Sent:* Thursday, March 13, 2025 9:16 PM
> *To:* Bergstrom, Aaron <aar...@un...>
> *Cc:* x3d...@li...
> *Subject:* Re: [x3dom-developers] Maya/RawKee export for X3DOM Material
> node
>
>
>
> Hi Aaron,
>
>
>
> It is probably time to support the X3D v.4 Material features but it is not
> in the cards in the near term. See
>
>
>
> https://doc.x3dom.org/tutorials/lighting/commonSurfaceShaderNode/index.html
>
>
> and
>
>
> https://andreasplesch.github.io/x3dom/test/functional/commonSurfaceShader06.html
>
>
>
> for an older x3dom equivalent which is very similar but can only use one
> set of texture coordinates.
>
>
>
> This would be also the starting point for supporting the new Material
> fields if anybody is interested in giving it a try.
>
>
>
> Also note that the x3dom PhysicalMaterial is older than X3D v.4 and mostly
> intended for glTF inlines. So it does not exactly conform to X3D v.4. I
> think for example it directly accepts binary buffers which can be passed to
> webgl.
>
>
>
> Hope this helps, -Andreas
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2025 at 12:04 PM Bergstrom, Aaron <aar...@un...>
> wrote:
>
> I realize that X3DOM supports the ‘PhysicalMaterial’ node, but are there
> any plans to update support for the old ‘Material’ node to be X3D 4.0
> compliant?
>
>
>
> The new RawKee plugin has 4.0 export support for both the
> ‘PhysicalMaterial’ and ‘Material’ nodes. I’m currently exporting Maya
> Phong, PhongE, Blinn, and Lambert shadingEngine nodes as 4.0 ‘Material’
> nodes. However, X3DOM doesn’t seem to support the 4.0 texture map features
> for the 4.0 ‘Material’ node.
>
>
>
> If there is no intent to have X3DOM to support the newer features of the
> ‘Material’ node going forward, I will change how I am exporting the Phong,
> PhongE, Blinn, and Lambert shaders from Maya.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Aaron
>
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>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Andreas Plesch
> Waltham, MA 02453
>
>
>
> --
>
> Andreas Plesch
> Waltham, MA 02453
>


-- 
Andreas Plesch
Waltham, MA 02453