3dsmax Challenge - get rid of the material!

[Sushidelic]

Fancy a go at this?

Here's a miracle max file, you'll find an Spacewarp FFD with a material assigned to it. Dunno how that happened, but now just try to remove the material.

Hints:
-"$.material" returns remove_me:Standard, but "$.material = undefined" does not work.
-"$[5]" returns the assigned material (SubAnim:remove_me)
-changing the material with "$.material = meditmaterials[2]" or "$.material = vraymtl()" f.ex. does not work.
-The removeUVW tool does not work.
-Trying to remove the material from the scenematerialindex does not work.
-you can change the material by changing the type in the material editor.

www.sushidelic.com/tmp/remove_material.rar (max8, 40kb)

I'm really curious for the solution!

Best regards,
Michael

[dimo]

Haha,

that sound like a real fun challenge, but I don't dare to touch the file because someone who assigns materials to spacewarps like that also eats little children... Who knows what else is creeping in that file?

Best regards,

Dieter

[RErender]

delete $is_it_strange_or_not

:P

[Sushidelic]

To shed a little more light on the topic, we're automatically importing models and apply materials to our scene by script (like opening an interface to let you choose the asset and the texture variation). But it's nothing unnormal we're doing there, just putting some variables into arrays and merging it in the end, automatically applying the selected materials. As we're aware of this strange behavior now, it's easy to exclude the ffd's from beeing "textured". Anyway, i'd really like to know how this can happen as i don't know how to get rid of the material either.

I'll be back in a minute, just have to check the children in the oven!

best regards,
Michael

[RErender]

speaking of children...I wonder if somehow the material was inherited from it's child, was something linked to it at one time?

[Dynedain]

If you can, just make a new spacewarp to replace the old one.

I've had issues like this where somehow a material got assigned to cameras and lights... never found a good solution.

[Sushidelic]

Making a new spacewarp isn't an option, as it is connected to a skin modifier and again linked with custom attributes to a rather complex rig. Anyway, as said before, we already addressed this issue by excluding the spacewarps from the texturing routine. It does not really pose big problems, scenes render normally, it's just that my scripts like filling the material editor with the scenematerials get spammed with animation materials that still persist on the ffds, while all other geometry has our render materials applied. So in the end it's a rather "fun" challenge to remove what must not be possible anyway...

Best regards,
Michael

[dbuchhofer]

interesting problem Sushi

Don't have an answer myself, but if theres one place where you can get an answer its at http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=98

[jacksc02]

ooooo i like a challenge.................

[jacksc02]

well i tried a bunch of scripts on this and nothing removes the material.
Anyone else had any luck?