Improve Material View Mode

* @IIIFGIII * Man, I was having this same issue some days ago. They should definitely fix that. Blender shouldnt lose features, or better said, it shoudnt get worse, but better.

* @IIIFGIII * Well, technically if you want your favorite things to get on top of the list you have to upvote your favorites AND downvote the rest. That's not "just because", that's how sorting by vote works. It's annoying but it's how RCS has been built.

* @IIIFGIII * its +13 now and thank so so much for this, i started using blender with 2.81, so i never saw this feature before, and i love to have it now ^^ , you got my up vote

So I was right - suggestion was just killed by single person with 7 accounts. Same as my suggesion about Wireframe Colors or Advanced Loop Select .

* @Ronan Ducluzeau * It's nothing hard to do though.

* @-L0Lock- * No, it would be really complicated to support In front option. Material Preview is supposed to display shadows and reflections. So, if you show above a lightened surface something that is supposed to be occluded by it, result should be a dark shadeless part.
To obtain something that is not awful to the eye, you would have to ignore expected occlusion for object with In Front option ON. That means that reflections could not be right. Materials Preview is not supposed to be matcaps rendering.

And about clipping region, problem is that probably could not be possible to have F12 render from Camera ignoring it.

* @Ronan Ducluzeau * but if its so hard why does it possible to mimic it with boolean cut? just a question..

* @Ronan Ducluzeau * Not sure I get you right, did you say that I ask for regression?

* @EP * A boolean cut is not the same thing as In Front option. That is for that option that I meant that is difficult. About Clipping Region, a boolean cut would be similar. But that means a boolean cut that goes through all the collections of the scene, not just one. That is not obvious that handling the whole scene would be simple.And need to make it work on Viewport but not on Render, implies extra work, too. Solution to add that, implies to take time of thinking. It is not obvious.

* @IIIFGIII * No. I am just saying that we cannot expect same simplicity as in 2.79 from a more complicated 2.8/2.9 drawing system. With EEVEE, we have more realistic material previews. That comes with counterparts. We can not have same ease to mess up overlapping of objects. We could have a lower performance at trying to lower a part of scene using Clipping Region, the same way as in 2.79.

* @Ronan Ducluzeau * Sometimes you need to see things with material instructions and clipping some part of mesh, or show something on front to use as reference or else... They just removed such clever adwantages from Blender. You can'd do this no more.

Blender without those features useless for me... no matter what amazing else they done. So what you propose me to do? Stay on 2.79 forever?

* @IIIFGIII * main downside for me it's only material preview shows texture normals (as shading ofcourse, not as diffuse), i absolutely need to see them for work so use material preview, if solid view could handle them too (also having access for all described stuff) for me i could say it will be enough... P.s. also dream having possibility to make absolutely transparent material with texture normals, as other softwares may..).

* @IIIFGIII * Don't be childish. They did not remove the feature. They replaced a mode that was supporting a certain feature by another mode that does not, to benefit of a lot of other features for this new mode.

You still have 2 modes that are supporting the feature.

About using In Front option for using a textured mesh as a reference, you can use Texture coloring in Solid display mode. If your reference is an image that needs to be projected on a plane, In Front option is working in Material display mode for Reference Image objects.

You cannot use clipping region. But you can still hide objects, collections. You can use boolean or mask modifier. You can modify material to make a part of it transparent. That is a lot more work, but that is possible.

I am not saying that developers should not take your complain seriously and avoid to invent something to make situation better. I am just saying that there is a valid reason for the lost of the feature.

* @Ronan Ducluzeau * ​....did you check my topic on devtalks ? With pictures and explanation of my work and why it's impossible to do it on new Blenders.

What the point to telling me that I "still have something" other mods supporting that feature if it does not help me with my work in any way?

* @IIIFGIII * I sincerely thought it could help you or developers trying to solve the issue.

You are mentioning that you need In Front option + Texture display. I am exposing two cases where it is possible.

I suppose that should be possible for a developer to give to objects with In Front option enabled same display as Reference Images in Material Display mode.

* @Ronan Ducluzeau * Not "+ Texture"... In Front/Clipping Region with "material instructions". Material instructions is any thing going on in material - UV anything, transparency, vertex color, texture blend, etc. 100 500 possible things.

In UE4 translucent shader has option "disable depth check" then it start draw such shader on top of any shit in scene. I really don't understand why they can't just add stupid simply draw order override option to brutforce depth/order check.

* @IIIFGIII * I am not saying that they can't. I am just saying that is work to make EEVEE build to respect depth order until now, accepting exceptions. If you want to make an object nested into another geometry, not just displayed black when In Front option is ON, but lighted like overlapping geometry was not casting shadows on it, EEVEE shading code has to be adapted. If you want reflection of backside of overlapping geometry neglected, you have to adapt EEVEE's code about reflection. I have absolutely no idea what kind of transparency refraction is expected to be seen in that case. OK. UVs, Vertex Color, Diffuse texture blending may not be problematic instructions. But as you said, there are probably dozens of other ones that are requesting to think about it. It is not because UE4 does it without problems, after years of existence ; that does not correspond to months of work for a Blender Dev.

* @Ronan Ducluzeau * It can work only in workbench, maybe, with supporting limited number of shader instructions. It can work with some restrictions, but it have to work somehow. Advantages it gives, ​worth it

I think not only me loose a lot with lack of those features. But right now I see here that in general people don't care or even against it... only 16 votes. Same as no any developer reply on devtalks. So just nevermind, looks like 2.79 for ever.

* @EP * It looks strange for me at least because I don't propose any changes or something, just ask to bring back good features to material mode. Everyone will benefit from this. So why so many -1 given?

* @IIIFGIII * I have the feeling, after years and years of reading various comments, that as soon as version 2.79 or earlier is mentioned, a sort of aversion begins and the like in the negative floods. A pro 2.8 / 2.9 faction has been created that does not allow "regressions" related to 2.79

* @zeirus * But this isn't regression. They just remove features I need for work. I been waiting few years to get them back and I'm tired of waiting. I can't work without it.

New version should give progression with imporoving features, not regression with removing features.