materials are self-duplicating?

[tahat]

This has happened to me a few times. When I change any material property, the material duplicates itself. Sometimes there are 10 of the same material. Restarting fixes it.

[konstantin_chaos]

Hi tahat,

Thank you for reporting this.

Which V-Ray version are you experiencing the issues with?

Can you describe the duplication issue in some more details?
Do you see material copies in the Asset Editor?
Also, what do you mean with "Restarting fixes it"?
I'm guessing that after the materials got duplicated there is no way to remove the copies.

Regards,
Konstantin

[konstantin_chaos]

Hi tahat,

We were able to identify one issue which leads to material duplication.
Basically if you right click on any V-Ray material in Rhino's materials list and then choose Reset to Defaults, the material enters a buggy state.
If you then change its type from V-Ray material to a standard Rhino one (Custom for example) the connection between the two will break, leaving behind a 'self-duplicating' material in the asset editor.
Applying it to a scene object or even changing one of its properties in the Asset Editor will cause copies to be created.

To fix this you can simply delete the V-Ray material that has no Rhino counterpart and avoid the Reset to Defaults feature.

We will make sure to handle this function in a better way in the next V-Ray update.

Regards,
Konstantin

[tahat]

Hi tahat,

We were able to identify one issue which leads to material duplication.
Basically if you right click on any V-Ray material in Rhino's materials list and then choose Reset to Defaults, the material enters a buggy state.
If you then change its type from V-Ray material to a standard Rhino one (Custom for example) the connection between the two will break, leaving behind a 'self-duplicating' material in the asset editor.
Applying it to a scene object or even changing one of its properties in the Asset Editor will cause copies to be created.

To fix this you can simply delete the V-Ray material that has no Rhino counterpart and avoid the Reset to Defaults feature.

We will make sure to handle this function in a better way in the next V-Ray update.

Regards,
Konstantin

Hi,
Thank you for the answer. I guess there is no permanent solution for now. But this is happening even though I didn't do the reset to default. I think you are aware of the problem.
By the way, I'm using the latest version. (v5.2)

[konstantin_chaos]

Hi tahat,

The underlying issue is actually the fact that you have 2 materials with identical names in the scene:
> One is a V-Ray material listed in the Asset Editor but not present in Rhino's material list
> The second has the same exact name but is only listed in Rhino's materials list. Its type is not set to V-Ray. It's most probably of type 'Custom'

The only way I was able to achieve this is by using the Reset function (as described in my previous post).
There might be another way.
Please let us know if you find it!

In the meantime just delete the problematic shader from the Asset Editor and everything will go back to normal.
I might be able to prepare a script that does it for you.

Konstantin

[matthewau]

I have this issue on an existing file with a lot of materials. It seems that after installing 5.2 the link between the asset editor material list and the rhino material list was severed as mentioned above on existing files that updated vray mid prodeuction. I found it better to delete the materials in the rhino material list that are no longer assigned as a "vray material" type. This will not delete the material in the asset editor, but you will need to reassign the materials to objects or layers in your scene.

[konstantin_chaos]

Hi matthewau,

We are once again looking into this issue because it looks like there other ways to produce it without resetting the materials.
There are 2 workflows that I found today which cause trouble:
1. Opening a scene without V-Ray being active (disabled a s a plugin), saving it, activating V-Ray and then loading it again. The result from this is duplicated materials with the same name that pop up in the Rhino's materials list. I'll log this as a bug.
2. Another way to cause trouble (similar to the first one) is opening a scene without V-Ray being loaded (as a plugin), changing the type of any material to one of the native types (like Custom) and then saving the scene. Loading this project with V-Ray will cause the material which type got changed to become 'self-duplicating'.

So my question here is, have manipulated the scene in any what while our plugin was not loaded?

Another thing which might help is to test with your project, the one saved with V-Ray 5.1.
Is it possible for you to share it?
It can be a simplified version in which you've deleted most scene objects and most materials.
Just make sure that the scene is saved with 5.1 and that the issue is reproducible after the cleanup.

Thank you in advance and once again excuse us for the inconvenience!

Konstantin

[konstantin_chaos]

Here's a summery of all the cases we found that cause some kind of material duplication and our recommendations in each one:

Case 1 (reset to defaults):

1. Create a V-Ray material
2. Right click on it in Rhino's material list
3. Select Reset to Defaults
4. The connection between the V-Ray material and the Rhino one will be lost (a self-duplicating material is produced)

This issue is fixed with the last update - V-Ray 5 for Rhino, update 2.1
* Upgrading V-Ray will not fix any scenes already saved with the buggy material.

Case 2 (altering V-Ray materials without V-Ray being loaded as a plugin):

1. Create a V-Ray material in any scene
2. Apply it to an object
3. Save the .3dm file
4. Disable V-Ray from Rhino's plugin manager
5. Restart Rhino
6. Open the .3dm
7. Change the type of the V-ray Material from Placeholder to Custom
8. Save the .3dm
9. Re-enable V-Ray
10. Open the last version of the file
11. The connection between the V-Ray material and the Rhino one will be lost (a self-duplicating material is produced)

We still don't have a good solution for this.
The correct thing seems to be - deleting any V-Ray materials that don't have Rhino counterparts on scene load.
This will, however, permanently delete the V-Ray material from the project and if the buggy material was not produced by the 'intentional' steps described in Case 2 this can be a problem.
* If we find a good way to address all other cases then the solution for Case 2 would become - deleting the V-Ray material.

Case 3 (saving a file containing V-Ray materials while V-Ray is not loaded as a plugin):

1. Create a V-Ray material in any scene
2. Apply it to an object
3. Save the .3dm file
4. Disable V-Ray from Rhino's plugin manager
5. Restart Rhino
6. Open the .3dm
7. Save the .3dm
8. Re-enable V-Ray
9. Open the last version of the file
10. The V-Ray material is no longer applied to the scene object. There is a copy of the material with the exact same name and type set to Custom (this one is applied to the object).

This case does not produce self-duplicating materials but is still an issue.
The only thing we can do about this case is report it to McNeel.
V-Ray is in no way involved in the issue. We tested with other 3rd party plugins and the same exact behavior is observed.

!! Case 4 (opening a 3dm file by double-clicking right after V-Ray is installed):

1. Install a V-Ray version different than the one you have
2. Double-click on a 3dm file containing V-Ray materials to open it
3. Rhino starts and then starts loading V-Ray for the first time
4. Unfortunately the scene gets loaded before V-Ray is initialized which leads to issues
5. Some or all of the scene material will become 'self-duplicating' ones
6. At this point the best course of action is to re-open the project...

This is another thing that we'll discuss with McNeel.
It is however very easy for you to avoid:
After installing new V-Ray version start Rhino in the regular way at least once.
Wait for the V-Ray plugin to be initialized before opening a file.
We will continue looking into ways for improving the UX in this case but it's not entirely up to us.

If anyone finds another way to produce self-duplicating material, please let us know!

Regards,
Konstantin

[Micha]

I have this issue on an existing file with a lot of materials. It seems that after installing 5.2 the link between the asset editor material list and the rhino material list was severed as mentioned above on existing files that updated vray mid prodeuction. I found it better to delete the materials in the rhino material list that are no longer assigned as a "vray material" type. This will not delete the material in the asset editor, but you will need to reassign the materials to objects or layers in your scene.

Hi matthewau,

maybe you havn't seen but I found a way to reconnect the materials quite fast.

https://forums.chaos.com/forum/v-ray...st#post1131760

-Micha