Architectural vs (Standard) materials

[luchifer]

Hi, just a quick question, if Architectural material is fast, have good quality and its also mental ray friendly, in what situations should I use Blinn/Strauss/cook-torrance/phong?

[Maximus]

in my opinion never, unless you strictly need them for compatibility issues maybe with other softwares.

[ActionArt]

They all produce a specific look. Architectural is a more advanced, more realistic lighting model but at times you may want the others to produce a specific, perhaps not as realistic look. Also, for certain things (like motion graphics/logos/plastic) the specular model is easier to control on some of the other shaders for quick easy results.

I find the Architectural shader's specular system a problem although you can go with true reflections and model the lights instead. You can also replace the specular shader with one from Binary Alchemy which I find works very well.

Probably the most important feature of the Architectural material is the BRDF (the way reflection intensity changes with angle) which all real materials have. It adds a level of realism the others can't produce.

In general, you probably rarely need the old ones

[luchifer]

thank you, I was out of 3d for quite some time and found that the Architectural does a lot of things of the old beloved ones.