hello, i have a problem with my material id’s, i set the id number in the edit poly mode for a selection of polygons, then i go over to my material editor and set up a map for this selection, the problems come when i click the assign material button, the original material number in the edit poly mode changes so the texture doesnt apply, for example i originally set the id number for a selection of polygons to 1 in the edit poly mode, then using a multi-sub object material i make sure that number is also 1, however when i click the assign material to selection the number over in the edit poly mode changes to 3. this is very annoying as it doesn’t happen all the time, only when it wants to annoy me!!
hope this all makes sense,
thankyou

Are you trying to assign the sub-materials directly to a selection of polys? That’s not how it works…

Assign the Multi-SO material itself (not the individual sub-materials) to the whole object (not to a sub-object selection). Then you can set the Material IDs on the polys and add the sub-materials as you go.

Max 4.2 through 2012 (SP2+SAP).
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

I see the problem.  Max wants to automatically create a Multi/Sub-Object material when assigning a material in Face or Polygon sub-object mode.  If you are making the MSO material yourself, make sure you assign it when in Top Level of the object. 

I believe there is something in the preferences about automatically creating sub-materials…

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA