Select objects by similar material - possible in Maxscript?

[AlexP]

Essentially, I would like to group objects by 'similar' material.

For example, I have a bunch of chrome objects, but for whatever reason they all have different copies of chrome materials applied to them.
These are identical bar minor variations in glossiness or diffuse colour.

Is it possible to use Maxscript to select groups of objects that share certain material similarities?

Or where the materials share certain similarities within some chosen thresholds?

[Dave_Wortley]

Haven't tested this and you'll need to play around and try settings yourself to see if you can get this to work, this may get too many matches. Comment out a line by putting -- before a line.

diffuseColorTollerance = 10
reflectionColorTollerance = 10
IORTollerance = 0.2

myObjs = #()

if selection.count == 1 and selection[1].material != undefined and classof selection[1].material == VrayMtl then
(
testObj = selection[1]
testmat = selection[1].material


for o in objects where o.material != undefined and classof o.material == VrayMtl do
(
    isSimilar = false
    mat = o.material
    if abs(testmat.diffuse.r - mat.diffuse.r) < diffuseColorTollerance do isSimilar = true
    if abs(testmat.reflection.r - mat.diffuse.r) < reflectionColorTollerance do isSimilar = true
    if abs(testmat.reflection_ior - mat.reflection_ior) < IORTollerance do isSimilar = true

    if isSimilar do append myObjs o
)
select myObjs
)
else
    MessageBox "Please Select One Object"

[^Lele^]

bam. good idea, good execution. ty!

[AlexP]

Cool thanks!
Dave to the rescue once again.
Think I understand what you have done here, and in theory should be easy to add further parameters, glossiness etc.

I wonder, how on earth does one amend this so it can work with maps? Is it even possible.

[Dave_Wortley]

showProperties (VrayMtl())

Will give you all the property types....

[AlexP]

Sure, thats everything I need to add glossiness etc.
But for maps, there's no way to get the resulting glossiness value from the map is there?

So if I have a metal with a glossiness of 0.8 and another metal with a glossiness map that hits 0.8 as its lowest value, is there a way to determine this via script?

[joconnell]

You'd have to try and sample the bitmaps in the slot which'd be kinda sloooooowww