Material Libraries over XReffed Scenes

[tricky]

I am working on a project that is comprised of many large office buildings - up to 30 or 40 in total.

We are modelling each building in its own AutoCAD file which is then being exported into its own Max file. So, office 1 will be called 'office_01.max' and office 2 will be 'office_02.max' etc. Each of these max files will be textured from a centrally saved material library which sits on our network.

So, when an image contains a few of these buildings in the one shot, we have a 'master' max file which we xref each of these office files into. Click render and, hey presto, we have a lovely rendered image using all of the different max files.

HOWEVER, there is going to be some overlap in materials. How do we ensure that each max file is using the most up-to-date material from a central material library.

Example - I open up office_01.max and modify a brick material. I might then save this modified brick material back to the central material library. My colleague then opens up office_02.max which uses the same brick texture. Problem - his max file will be using the old version of the material. How do we keep everybody up to date?

I hope somebody understands.

[WWX]

Xref

Hi Tricky,

I am no expert on Max Xref, but if you consider that the Pattern image is only referanced to the file and not embedded, there should be no problem if you overwrite the old pattern file with the new one.

Since Max only see the file name and location it will load the map and display the new one.

Hope this is what you where asking for.

[RErender]

In the material browser there is a button "update scene materials from library" just open the scene, load the mat library and press that button. As long as the material names have not changed in the scene they will be updated.