I have a bunch of material libraries that need to be re-pathed as I have moved my textures, the Bitmap/Photometric paths editor has a tickbox that says “include material library” which leads me to believe that it will list, for re-pathing, all materials in my library.

However, it doesn’t seem to do anything for me even though the library i need to re-path is loaded into my Material/map browser. Am I missing something obvious here? I don’t really want to spend days doing each material by hand.

If I open the bitmap path editor after ticking the “include material library” box, the editor opens but is empty.

The reason I’m doing this is that I’ve built up material libraries over time which won’t work as I’ve re-organised my textures files. I was looking at a way to re-path all my old mat libs to avoid any future problems during deadlines. It’s not just a specific job that I’m doing this for.

From the help file.

“Include Material Library
When on, the Bitmap Path Editor dialog shows materials in the current material library, as well as those assigned to objects in the scene. Default=off.”

Originally I saw the path editor as you say, to edit materials used in the scene but that sentence in bold seems to imply soemthing different. It seems to say that the editor will list materials used in the secene as well as those listed in the library.

I know it’s a quick thing to do during a job but I’d rather sort out the libraries once than have to do this to every job I ever work on for the next 10 years or so.

Add the path here;

3ds Max 9 thru 2013
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit OS SP1
Dual Intel® Xeon® 6 core X5650 @ 2.67GHz CPU 36GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000
450GB HDD (x3) and 2TB HDD

3ds Max 2012 Certified Professional Models to Motion

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Yes, it says that the path editor should list the contents of the material library...........as well as those in the scene. That’s what I’m posting about, it will ONLY list what’s in the scene, it will not list what’s in the library. If the function doesn’t do what I need that’s fair enough but it looks and sounds like it should.

I’ve added the new locations Doughboy, thanks, just wasn’t sure if Max would grab the textures automatically no matter where thet were. If it does then I’ll just leave the Mt Libs.

Thanks for the feedback.

Since material libraries are a subset of the 3ds max file format you may be able to script a solution using the Asset Metadata access to the scene assets. This would, in theory, allow you to alter the path through automation, without the need to open and edit every file.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to attempt to create this script at this time. If I do find some free time I will see if I can help you and post back.

-Eric

Eric Craft
“The Evil Monkey hiding in your closet.”