material workflow

[iceboydarkb]

in the next month i am working with 5-7 people on a project . and one guy will do the materials and look dev.

 

what is the best workflow for materials. can we use xrefs or containers to reference the materials into the main file for rendering?

 

he thinks he will create the materials and then we will import all the objects.haha thats to complicated.

[cg_Butler]

Once he's made that materials they can be saved in to a material file which each of you can open. The only problem id doing that is if a material is changed, you will have to reload the material library and reapply the changed material.

 

There isn't a way, as far as I know, to have a material library that will automatically update materials.....

[notamondayfan]

Just use xref materials. Create a max file with a box, apply "material 1" to it, save the max file as "material_1.max". Then in your scenes, use the xref material to link to the material in the "material_1.max" file. If the shader guy changes the material 1, then it's updated over your scenes.

 

Dean

[iceboydarkb]

you can move a xref material to another object in the scene? how?

[notamondayfan]

In the same way you can with any other material, use the material editor. Look in the manual for xref materials.

[iceboydarkb]

thanks.

 

when you have the xref material in the scene is it possible to change the xref material to the normal material so that you can change it? i mean destroying the xref and having all the multi sub and settings

[notamondayfan]

Yes, the xref material will appear in your xref objects dialogue, and you can merge the xref into the scene.

 

Dean

[iceboydarkb]

we got it to work now. apply xref materials to objects. but it works only with basic materials.

 

i am wondering right now if this would be possible:

car on the road

-modeler models the car and road

-lookdev artist textures and creates the materials (imports models and assigns materials)

-main guy assembles the models into the main scene file (xref from the modeler scene and xref from the materials scene)

 

we have comeplex materials. sometimes its just one material on one objects and sometimes multi-sub on one model and multi-sub on multiple objects.i think xref dont work very good with groups and multiple objects and materials.

[notamondayfan]

They work in the same way as every other material, so I can't see why they wouldn't work with groups, multiple objects or multi sub materials.

 

You are best creating multi sub materials in the model file, and xreffing the individual materials into the file, then instancing them to your multi sub material.

 

Dean

[iceboydarkb]

i can not link with xref materials from objects that are in a group. thats what i meant