I wouldn’t know whether to give you the reason or not. But it’s good that this time it’s someone else who talks about the elephant in the room and that’s because many selected matcaps have more to do with that raven instinct that humans have with everything that shines. But I think William’s done a good job of filtering that out.
It is true that many very good matcaps have been ignored and that the votes on materials have basically gone to the coolest materials. I personally with two or three of the chosen ones remain happy. But it is true that there is a lack of a wider selection of sculpting materials and that many of some users’ materials have been ignored because they were simply boring and were never going to get enough votes (Jean Da Costa made some interesting ones practically forgotten). The same thing has happened with many matcaps with backlit or side lights that are not very useful in real life but look great in screenshots.
On the other hand, and this is why I don’t want to give you the reason, it is also true that the selected materials are useful and that not only the matcaps are useful for sculptors and the ones with reflections are very useful. I myself have often used these tacky materials to see how some objects would work with a material more similar to the one they will eventually have (And I’m sorry, I can’t see if a gold lamp fits well with a terracotta material). In short, although not enough matcaps have been selected to sculpt this does not invalidate the usefulness of the materials with reflections. What’s more, compared to Blender 2.79 this selection of matcaps is much more boring than the old one, but by far, it just doesn’t meet your criteria for a sculpture matcap. But we also have to say that your pink matcap was much more tacky and with more points of light than almost all the ones chosen here… that by the way I don’t know why you say it’s one of the most used, I guess it’s father’s love.
But I think this problem is easily solved by adding 5-6 extra matcaps. Three with better reflections, for example the carpint is not convincing and the metallized ones have disappeared. And another three for sculpture. Plus maybe a little touch-up on some of the existing ones. Although it is true what some users have said that a selection of more matcaps would be more correct (although we must be careful that the matcaps may end up weighing more than the blender itself).
Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know whether or not to agree with you.
I was looking up and trying to make my own selection of matcaps and I come to the realization that there are many cool matcaps but most of them, I would not use for my projects. Except the Jade matcap. that one must be included for sure, even if not easy on the eyes, its so beautifull for showcasing sculpts.
One of the main things I took into account designing my matcaps was to make sure that they had some directional lighting since that was the one thing lacking from all the previous ones from blender 2.79
I don’t really want matcaps only lit from the front, that was my biggest issue with the old ones.
I like to think about that either but directional light can come as a subtle effect also, it need just enough to distinguish left from right and top from bottom with harsh edges to see the silhoutte. a simple differentiation of the ambient colors is enough, there’s no need for a super visible gradient.
Main purpose of matcaps is sculpting and modeling. Zbrush have variety of weird matcaps because they are only way to render models in this program. No one use those reflective materials during sculpting, their only purpose is previz. We have way better alternatives for that, called Eevee and LookDev. Workbench primary goal was always proper visualization during tasks like modeling, sculpting, working with objects. Go read design docs. This is why we should focus on boring sculpting and modeling matcaps first and then we might add some cool ones.
You are referring to previsualization. I agree fancy matcaps with reflections are useful, I use them for modeling tasks. My point is they are not useful while you sculpt, when you need to see how geometry deforms under your brush.
Many created by JeanDaCosta looks good. Thing is, the only way to test sculpting matcap is to… sculpt extensively using it. There’s no way around. I downloaded 16 matcaps from this topic and will be testing them this week. My pre-selection: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 28, 24 (mud one), 86, 122, 125, 162, 172, 181, 213, 257, 260
That matcap is a great one.
Too bad it wasn’t selected. I guess it came too late, haha.
This type of matcaps are the most effective for sculpting, doesn’t hide anything. I use a similar one in ZBrush, in fact many zbrush users use this type of matcaps too. I can already see this being one of the most popular matcaps for sculpting in Blender if it was included. Hahaha.
A few of the ones you linked to is already on the preliminary list. We could maybe add like one more, then we are back at 24 matcaps like in 2.79. I think that would be ok.
The plan is to verify the list on monday for inclusion in the 2.8 beta, so if you want to help out deciding on a good so-called ‘boring’ sculpting matcap, please do go ahead.
I’m modeler and I sculpt since 15 years ago, and the last 2 years I only sculpt using blender. But I think that you must accept other matcaps and not only sculpting matcaps because blender have a lot of users, not only sculpting.
Your preselection of matcaps have a lot of matcaps of last william selection and you must admit that a lot of that matcaps are similar.
@billrey Finally in blender2.8 we will have the option to rotate and change hue and bright of matcaps?
Alberto: No, there are no plans to include hue and brightness adjustments for matcaps currently, that I know if. It existed temporarily in the Clay engine, which no longer exists. It often broke the matcaps quite badly, esp the old low quality compressed ones.
However, with the new ones being EXRs, it could be useful to bring this back, as it wouldn’t break the images as badly anymore. The hue one especially could be useful for things like the car paint matcap, if you don’t like red cars
Note that we did add an option to flip matcaps, which is useful to see your model in a new light, and if you prefer the highlight to be on the other side. We think this is more useful than rotating matcaps, because the ground plane will then be off.
Hi, how about bump up the list and include this one? This is the sculptor’s dream, haha, every zbrush user has a similar one, and I’m sure Blender users would love to have it too, I know I would.
Would be really good have that controls if it’s possible. Also if you guys see this option, could you think in change the “bright” to “contrast” control? with an EXR will be more usefull.
I downloaded 16 matcaps from this topic and will be testing them this week. My pre-selection: