Replacing SKu Material with another from the current library
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+1
Hi, Bruno.
I have found no way to do this, but it would certainly be very cool if anyone can come up with a solution.
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You can do this using the Shift and Control(Apple and Option? on Mac) modifier keys.
Select new color >
-Shift+click will change all matching materials in model
-Control+click will change all matching connected materials
-Control+shift+click will change all matching materials on the same object...or try TIG's script
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that @#$@# awsome d12, thanks a bunch for the heads up!
now thats what i call a tip!
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Thanks Ecuadorian, that was precisely what I had in mind! Its really that: eliminate duplicates and triplicates of a material that should be the same. Your explanation is absolutely clear. I will investigate, if I do find a way I will post it.
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There's no way you can do what you want in your original question...because, as you've probably found out, the Materials editor won't allow duplicate material names...so you can't consolidate all the steels under a Steel 1 title.
That's not to say that you can't standardise the materials and have them all the same for render purposes. You can edit steel 2 and steel 3 in terms of the texture file used and its scale (assuming they were different in the first case) so that they become identical to steel 1. You'll still have their names in the materials browser, but at least everything will now look the same.As things stand at the moment, to tidy up completely, you'd need to get in there and select/replace all instances of steel 2 and 3 with steel 1 then purge the model. At the back of my mind, I think there is a Ruby that deals with material replacement on a global scale, but I've never used it myself.
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Thanks for the tip. However:
Shift+Click changes the material in the current context. You still have to go inside each component to do it. TIG's script works with selections, which is awesome for applying a single mat to everything inside a component. EDIT: If you select nothing it applies the change to the whole model, so TIG's material changer script, which Rocky linked, is what you're looking for.
Please ignore this part of my original post
@unknownuser said:
Still no way to do what Bruno wants. I'll rephrase it: Let's say you have two dozens of different chair components in your file, and each has one or two different "chrome" materials applied to their shiny parts. They also have several leather, plastic and fabric materials, often more than one per component. This makes it a nightmare to make changes when you're rendering tests, as each test requires you to manually edit each of all those materials. If there was a way to remap materials you could consolidate all those chrome mats into one. Same for the leather, plastic and fabrics materials.
What I say sounds exaggerate but it's pretty much what happens after filling your project with 3D warehouse stuff. You start to have lots of duplicate materials that become a pain in the neck very soon and would be nice to have a way to remap them.
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Alan, thanks a lot for your post, as it encouraged me to take a second look at TIG's script and indeed if you select nothing it does exactly what Bruno needs. This has just been another big Duh! moment for me.
Bruno, after making the change, make sure to purge the model as Alan said.
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I will certainly look at tig's script for sure. Thank you all.
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TIG's script + purge model from model info (or purgeall.rb ruby) works great. Thank you all. From now on, no more materials than those strictly needed!
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