Why is substrate so convoluted?!

The introduction of substrate is a welcome and exciting development. The ability to refine material creations seems very promising to say the least. I may be alone on this however but I have found that authoring in substrate can be very convoluted and not very artist friendly. Some concepts seem to be relevant only to specific scenarios or there are more than 1 way of doing something that produces different results so it creates confusion. An example is the surface thickness and how it relates to say the other thickness parameters that appear in quite a few other nodes. Using it directly from the vertical layer produces something totally different from using it directly from the Transmittance-MFP node and I’ve seen some people use the coverage weight as well to control the blending…Another example a 0 Top thickness shows nothing of the top layer which is correct however when the roughness is turned down it shows as a reflective film around it even though my top thickness is still 0…How does thickness relate to Top thickness?

Why for example is fuzz or glint part of the main slab and not part of the helpers. Are these properties inherent in all natural materials by default…?!

I would like to reiterate my enthusiasm for this new system - I may be alone here but I feel it should be more logical in how it works so that more people can take advantage of its capabilities.

I think like with many new systems and workflows, there are kinks and things that aren’t clear simply because they require a new way of thinking. I agree some of it is less artist friendly, but at the same time you can see the thought behind it, and I do like where it is headed as a whole. I believe materials should be more along the lines of a scientific definition of matter, and that seems to be what the goal for Substrate is at its core.

Over time, I’m sure this new system will be refined, optimized, and the community will continue to do what it does best, which is to push it to its limits, identify weak points, and ultimately improve it.

I like your positive outlook:) and I agree in the end it will be what it should be because the community and its users will make it that way because we love the engine!..I just felt since it is a big revamp with great potential a little more thought on making it more logical and straight forward would not have been a bad thing. Unreal has a reputation of being sometimes complicated with certain functionalities being added on over existing ones etc. so I thought that this was a chance because of its seemingly simplistic front end - to make it more logical and better documented and not added because it suited a particular need at the moment…