Why Do My A&D Materials Do This?

[Michael J. Brown]

I've just recently switched from using Standard materials to using A&D materials. I've always used a moderate number of multi-sub object materials so now I'm converting my old Standard ones to A&D.

 

I ran into a brick wall with a model recently where it would take up to 5 minutes to open a file that should take no more than 15 seconds. Just switching viewports would freeze Max (2008) completely. I narrowed the problem down to the multi-sub object mat I used on the floor. Once I remodeled the floor into three seperate sections with three seperate A&D materials assigned the problem went away. What's up with that?

 

Anybody else experienced this before?

[WAcky]

yeah i find that my material window is so slow in 2008. Just takes so long to open. No idea why tho...

[Justin Hunt]

do you have a large amount of networkd files in the search paths?

 

Also seeing that the A&D shader is relitivly complex it take longer for the preview to generate. Therefore if you are showing alot of material slots it can take a while to update. Try reducing the number of slots, limiting the use of multisub materials and leaving the material editor open. either minimise it or put it on an other screen if you have one.

 

JHV

[Michael J. Brown]

do you have a large amount of networkd files in the search paths? JHV

 

 

No networked files at all. All my maps, RPCs, and other stuff is local to my own hard drive.

 

Also seeing that the A&D shader is relitivly complex it take longer for the preview to generate. Therefore if you are showing alot of material slots it can take a while to update. Try reducing the number of slots, limiting the use of multisub materials and leaving the material editor open. either minimise it or put it on an other screen if you have one.

JHV

 

My material editor window was not open at the time. Heck, I never even made it that far. Like I said, Max would freeze completely if I so much as tried switching active viewports. (forcing me to do a clrl+alt+del to end "End Task" it) The file was no larger or more complex than any of the other dozens I've built in the past several months. The only thing I had done differently with this model from the others was the assigning of a multisub mat using A+D mats to a floor - whereas in all previous applications I would model the different floor sections seperatly and assign individual Standard materials.

 

Once I deleted the floor and went back to my old method (but still using seperate A+D mats), all was fine again.