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Author Topic: general question about materials  (Read 1381 times)

MQ4267

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general question about materials
« on: February 19, 2016, 05:41:18 PM »
hello, so i created a small patch of grass blades, then picked that as a geometry option in a new forest object, picked surface etc...

my question is this: when i use the eye-dropper tool in the material editor to get the material off the forest object, i see a multi/sub-object material with 2 materials: #1 is "my grass", #2 is "color id 0".  is that always necessary to have that color id 0 or can i change that to something else.

the #2 material, "color id 0" is a standard 3ds max material.  if i copy the #1 material, which is a mentalray arch&design, over the #2 material, then render, it changes back to a standard.

i'm just wondering if there is a way to make sure it's only mentalray materials and get rid of that "standard".

ultimately, i'm testing this out with the iray render engine in 3ds max 2016... not sure if there is a specific workflow for that?

thanks!

MQ4267

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Re: general question about materials
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2016, 08:14:07 PM »
well, nevermind... looks like you can turn off "consolidate materials" ini the geometry rollout and then assign an instance from thematerial editor to the material slot.  this seems to remove that multi-sub object with the "color id 0" standard material. cool.

iToo

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Re: general question about materials
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2016, 08:53:04 AM »
Hi, the "Color ID" materials are created on the fly and used only for viewport, you can ignore them safely.

Forest needs to build a single multi-sub object material combining all the materials applied to the items in the Geometry List. Because creating this material and correctly assigning the material IDs manually would be a complex and time consuming procedure, Forest performs this action automatically.

Subsequently applying materials to items is very different compared with the normal workflow in 3DS Max. The material is NOT applied directly to the object using the Material Editor, but instead selected as a parameter in the Geometry rollout, using the "Material" pick button.

For Custom Objects, if material is not specified, Forest uses the material assigned to the source object.

So, as general rule, we suggest to leave "Consolidate Materials" on (which is the default value), and modify directly the materials assigned in Geometry->Materials, or from the source object if this parameter is not specified.
Carlos Quintero
iToo Software

SD8355

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Re: general question about materials
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2016, 04:38:17 PM »
Sorry, but I don't understand how this works (with custom objects)

I've made a library of 7 customs rocks, all of them have a proper material assigned to it in the source scene (redshift renderer), I even named by numbering them, and assigned an id corresponding to the number, then when I add them in the forest object list, I do it in order so I can have id's matching exactly the order/name/number of each object.

Even after doing all that careful organized procedure, forest pack seems to assign the materials randomly to the rocks, I can notice it because of the uv layout differing from one another (if it's not the good material, the uv's don't match). And sometimes, it even renders a part of the rocks with the id color (?!).

At the end, I have no control over the material of my rocks, even considering the fact that I setup all that beforehand.

Can someone help me understand how do I get control of that (ps: I already read the doc and some posts about material assignment and id, etc).

Thank you in advance.

iToo

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Carlos Quintero
iToo Software