Material slots more than 24

[Sketchrender]

Hi

How do i get more than 24 slots in my material editor.

 

Thank you

 

phil

 

3d studio max 7

[Matt Sugden]

I think you may be referring to a problem I had a while ago, afaik max will only show 24 slots in the editor, in order to allocate more materials, you have to use multi/sub-object materials, which will allow you to assign and edit many more materials, but you'll have to start using material ids in order to implement these into your scene.

Hope this helps.

[DennisHolland]

Something I have figured out is a rather unusual way to have more freedom...

 

When you're close to deal with that problem just save one last slot and use it to fabricate and assign materials to an object. When you need to have that slot free for a new material on another object, just delete the material and check the option 'only in material editor'. You can make a new material in that very same slot over and over again.

 

Need one of the previous materials?? Just select the object on which the material is assigned and hit the 'get material > selected'....done!

 

Take care, don't get confused. Any questions just shout...

 

Dennis

[Sketchrender]

ok thanks

my situation is I have been given a model and all 24 slots are alocated.

I now nede to import the landscaping and other buildings i have modeled, and texture them.

 

can anybody help please I am under pressure here, as I have no slots available to even get the sub materials started.

 

help.please

thanks

phil

[STRAT]

http://www.axsstudios.com/tut/slots/

[enigma]

just duplicate any slot and rename immediately after duplicating, this way u have a new material to assign to a new object. you can do this a million times without affecting any material that has been applied to the scene.

[Sketchrender]

I got it sorted, thank you, for a again saving me form a long and frustatring search through reference book and net tutorials.

 

Thank all very much.

 

phil

[mbr]

It's the stupidest thing, imo, and I can't figure out why they haven't done anything with it (when was the last material editor update?? Probably before I began using the program!).

 

It's far more difficult than it has to be. FormZ for example, allows as many as you want, you just scroll down to see the entire list (and you can 'sort' and 'purge' the list, which is great too).

 

One thing you need to be very careful of is that if you delete an object that has a material you need, and it's not in the 24, then it's gone forever. I've done that countless times.

What I do to try to keep from losing mats is to make sure I create a library for each project and save to that library. You can also get materials from different projects, so save incremental file names and you should be ok.

 

Be careful with dragging copies and changing the properties. You can accidentally cahnge the active properties. I always do the DELETE the mat and check 'only in editor'. Or make sure you rename immediately.

 

Man, it's still so illogical!!

[crubadue]

Here is a handy script from scriptspot.com that adds a few more slots for you. You can switch between the first 24 slots and a second 24 slots.

 

http://membres.lycos.fr/theguzz/Download/scripts/Medit48.ms

[abicalho]

It's the stupidest thing, imo, and I can't figure out why they haven't done anything with it (when was the last material editor update?? Probably before I began using the program!).

 

Man, it's still so illogical!!

 

I wish there was only 1 slot. This way users would know how to use the Mtl Map Browser the way they should.