material by element, but with instances

[Tim Nelson]

I want to do something like the material by element modifier, but without attaching all of my instances into a single editable polygon. Is there a way to do that? Basically I want 4 or 5 different intensities of diffuse map to be applied to a bunch of instanced objects.

 

I guess I could do a random select script, and manually assign them to different materials. But I don't think that would give me as good of results since I'm trying to do 4 or 5 types.

[Chad Warner]

How about this script: http://www.cg-source.com/multitexture.php

It says it works with ids or objects.

 

or quizzys:

http://www.3idee.nl/3d/php/script.php?id=4

[Dave Buchhofer]

Does it need to be instanced, or will reference work? how editable does it need to be.. If references are ok, and editability other than randomizing isn't much of an issue.. a 1-2line script can set it up for you

[Dave Buchhofer]

there is also a built in multi material texture since 2010, but it only works with scanline/mental ray so far

[dpcaltdcah]

select all of the objects you want to randomly assign materials to and use this script:

 

"for obj in selection do obj.material = meditMaterials[random 1 5]"

 

where the #'s 1 and 5 are the numbers of the slots in your material editor that contain the materials you want to use(they're numbered L to R on each row and top to bottom). So if you had the 5 materials you wanted to assign and they are in in slots 2-6 you'd change that to say [random 2 6] or whatever.