Material editor notes

[Sicolet]

great to have a spot to write notes inside the material editor to help communicate to others on a team to what is going on in a specific material.

[stilgarna]

+1 good idea

[tct70]

This may help.................

http://www.jonseagull.com/downloads.shtml#notes

[stilgarna]

This may help.................

http://www.jonseagull.com/downloads.shtml#notes

Yes, but I don't like additional plug ins...
I think it's not very hard to add this directly into vraymtl...

Best regards...

[vlado]

You can add custom attributes to the materials, I think. You don't need plugins for that and it does not require changes to the VRayMtl material.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Sicolet]

Vlado are you saying that the script above shouldn't have any affect on vray's material or rendering or that there is another way to do this.

If there is another way can someone help me understand/teach me how to do this?

Thanks,

[instinct]

This is indeed possible and rather straight forward...

-Select the object that has the material
-Go to "Animation menu -> Parameter Editor
-Switch the first drop down to "Selected Object's Material"
-Set Parameter Type to "String"
-Add a name in the UI Type group (something like "Comments" would work i guess :P )
-set the Size of the editbox as desired
-set Label above text box to "on" to conserve space
-Add a default text if wanted
-Hit Add on the top

Now take a look at the mat you have an additional rollout "Custom Atrributes" that has your notes box

Regards,
Thorsten

[Da_elf]

oooo. good tip

[percydaman]

This is indeed possible and rather straight forward...

-Select the object that has the material
-Go to "Animation menu -> Parameter Editor
-Switch the first drop down to "Selected Object's Material"
-Set Parameter Type to "String"
-Add a name in the UI Type group (something like "Comments" would work i guess :P )
-set the Size of the editbox as desired
-set Label above text box to "on" to conserve space
-Add a default text if wanted
-Hit Add on the top

Now take a look at the mat you have an additional rollout "Custom Atrributes" that has your notes box

Regards,
Thorsten

interesting, but man what a lot of work to add some text to your material.

[instinct]

Well try it. It sounds a lot more work then it actually is once you did it a few times.
If you need it specialised for adding notes to materials it should be pretty straight
forward to do a script that adds notes to the mat selected in the mateditor with
one click i'd say.

Regards,
Thorsten

[percydaman]

Well try it. It sounds a lot more work then it actually is once you did it a few times.
If you need it specialised for adding notes to materials it should be pretty straight
forward to do a script that adds notes to the mat selected in the mateditor with
one click i'd say.

Regards,
Thorsten

agreed. I said it seemed like alot of work, only cause I did actually try it. But I'm certainly not denigrating your input. Its a creative solution to a problem, and I hold those in high regard.

[instinct]

As i am currently waiting for a realflow sim to finish (sigh!) i hacked something together quickly. Maybe that's useful to anyone:

macroScript add_notes category:"mv_helpers" tooltip:"Add a notes rollout to selected material or map in MEdit"
(

notesCA = attributes "Material Notes"
(
	parameters matNotes rollout:notesRollout
	(
		notesNotes type:#string ui:noteBox default:"Type your notes here" 
	)
		
	rollout notesRollout "Notes and Comments"
	(
		edittext noteBox "" height:250 LabelOnTop:true
	)
)

CAT_Debug = True

mtl = meditMaterials[activeMeditSlot]
custAttributes.add mtl notesCA
)

Running this in max creates an entry in the customize dialogue in the category mv_helpers named add_notes.
Adding it to a toolbar or shortcut will add a notes rollout to the currently selected mat or map in the Material editor. It is supposed to add only one per mat/map but that's without error checking or exception handling. Seems to work tho.

To add a notes rollout to a map you have to instance it to a slot. Doesnt respect currently shown submat or submap.

The notes are preserved with both file saving and within material libraries.

Dunno if that's of any help but i had a minute to spare.

Regards,
Thorsten