ProMats to A&D

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Does anyone know if there is a way to convert ProMaterials into Arch & Design materials?

 

I tried both the mrArch&Design Utilities script, and the mr Shader Utilities 2010 script. Both seemed to ignore the ProMats.

[Shaun Hamm]

have you tried this one?

 

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/material-converter-v0-98b

 

edit: i tested it out quickly, it makes them into arch & design materials but doesnt retain any color/textures from the promaterial

Edited December 15, 2009 by shaunph78

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Thanks. It is a start anyway. It will save me two clicks on each material, which will save time on projects that have 100 materials or more. I just don't see why Revit can't have A&D shaders. It would make life easier.

[thorsten hartmann]

Hi Crazy Homeless Guy,

 

SU Pro ignore the converting, because there´s no sense. The Pro Material have Switch Shader included to select different Material types. That is very good and second it is based on the mia_material Shader. For more flexibility can you use the TH-Materials. To Christmas comes a new Update, but here the new GUI´S.

 

http://www.infinity-vision.de/ShaderUtilities/de/index.html

 

PS: Shader Utilities Pro work with TH-Materials 100%.

 

mfg

hot chip

Edited December 15, 2009 by thorsten hartmann

[AJLynn]

Yeah, the problem is that though the Pro Materials are nice for some applications, they're what Autodesk made them, nothing more or less. There are some advanced techniques you can't do with them.

[thorsten hartmann]

Hi

 

The Pro-Material & TH-Materials are 100% mental ray phenomenons and based only on mental ray Shaders. They work in all application Maya, 3DSMax, XSI ...

Edited December 15, 2009 by thorsten hartmann

[AJLynn]

Yeah, that's not really my point. Being phenomena is all well and good but they're made to not frighten basic users and therefore have limitations. Being able to convert them to A&D would be good because there are advanced techniques you can do with A&D materials that you can't do with "Pro" Materials (a misnomer - they're for amateurs).

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I tried the TH materials when you first released them, but I felt they still lacked many of the methods that I use for speed tweaking the A&D materials. I haven't tried the subsequent releases since then.

 

I actually like that I can create nearly all of the materials I need out of one shader. That way I have less to remember about what material has what, and how to tweak it for speed.

 

Also, I am wanting to test the A&D's with Vray. ProMats don't work with Vray. I haven't tested A&D with it yet, but they are supposed to be compatible.

 

For some reason I thought there was a way to auto convert ProMats, but I still can't find it.

[Justin Hunt]

My little bit of testing A&D with vray reveals that whilst they do render some of the features are not supported (like cutout maps) and the reflections come out very differently. In other words you can render them but they wont look the same.

 

jhv

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

My little bit of testing A&D with vray reveals that whilst they do render some of the features are not supported (like cutout maps) and the reflections come out very differently. In other words you can render them but they wont look the same.

 

jhv

 

Thanks, good to know.

 

I'm not so worried about cut out maps because I try to avoid them at all cost, but the reflections are a bit concerning. But then again, the levels you need to set the reflections at for Vray native materials, and A&D materials very quite a bit also. So it may just be a characteristic of that.

Edited December 16, 2009 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[thorsten hartmann]

Hi

 

Chaos Group can´t write a converter from TH-Material to Vray-Standard Material. Chaos Group must write the same Switch Shader and GUI, than works. I love the TH-Materials, because i have a new Workflow to optimize Huge Szenes. I can say with Shader Utilities Pro there i want only optimize Concrete or only Metals. For example. I have a City with over 100 different Proxie Buildings and over 4000 Materials. I want optimize only the AO of all Contrete and Wallpaint Shaders. That works only with TH-Materials and Shader Utilities Pro.