280: EEVEE vs Cycles?

[tngreene]

Currently we have 2 features (or maybe more) that require EEVEE

• Specularity is taken from Material Properties > Specular (turn Nodes off)
• SIZE parameter replacement relies on Light Properties > Spot Light > Use Custom Distance > Distance, which is only in EEVEE

I don't think we have anything else since most of our material use comes from the X-Plane properties.

So, what will people want? Cycles or EEVEE? Do we need two properties one in each mode? Jump to a nodes version? Make our own specularity properties and avoid the question? And how many times are we going to invent our own instead of using Blenders because we don't want to commit to a 2 property version for each Cycles and EEVEE, or force people to use one or the other?

WYSIWYG would really awesome, and we can't easily get that making our own material properties for everything.

See also #449, #528, #564 for other times we questioned Cycles and EEVEE.

[airfightergr]

Is this for non-PBR workflow? I think that PBR workflow dictates the use of the blue channel of the noraml map to control specularity. Is it possible to get the Specular value, when Normal Metalness is not selected, out of Principled shader's specular value? I've created a "Ball" material and here is the specular value as printed on the info editor: bpy.data.materials["Ball"].node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"].inputs[5].default_value = 0.6

[tngreene]

The SIZE replacement was changed anyway by now. So, the only concrete problem is Specular Value

[kbrandwijk]

I'd also like support for the Principal BSDF. Similar exporters/addons for other software (for example SCS Blender Tools) have this option, to detect a slew of parameters from the shader, including textures and metalness/specular/etc. values.

And how many times are we going to invent our own instead of using Blenders

I 100% agree with this. Do not duplicate native functionality if at all avoidable (probably applies to a couple of other things too).