Hi everyone, i´m having a problem with merged multi materials with same name and structure. Even if i choose to use the scene or merged material, max duplicates the material in the scene, so some times - depending the scene - i got several repeated materials with the same name, instead of just one, wich would make the scene much more organized.
is there a way to fix that? does any one knows a scritp to “unify” equal materials??
thanks,

jsrocha - brasil

Hi Jsrocha!

Assuming I understand the issue the right way; by merging geometry and getting one of the proposed options (use scene or merged) for the materials you get materials having the same names but different settings, is that the issue?
As far as I know Max cannot “understand” that two materials from the same type have different settings if they have the same name.
So that’s normal the problem you are having is not an issue, it is like that by design.

ivan

I understand the problem, as I deal with it myself.  We work fairly often with imported Revit models, and they always come in with dozens of MSO materials.  And more often than not, there will be a couple of materials that share the same name but are not instances of each other.  The problem lies within the Multi/Sub-Object materials.  You can clone a material from one slot to another as a Copy, but it still maintains the same name.

I don’t know of a script myself that would instance them again.  I’ve always gone through and done it manually.  :(

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

I am having similar problems importing Inventor 2011 models into 3ds Max Design 2011.

1. Create an Inventor part and assign a material
2. Place the part multiple times into an Inventor assembly
3. Import Inventor assembly into Max (various options tried)
4. A material occurrence is created for each part occurrence (see image)

Editing one of the materials only effects the part with which it is assocaited. I need to be able to edit all the materials at once. Any insight or scripts to accomplish this would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Jerry

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