Export Materials

[BillyRaygun]

Is there a way to export materials all at once? I want to create a materials library using just the materials from my current model.

[LeoBonilla]

Re: Export Materials

I don't think so.

[Micha_cg]

Re: Export Materials

Copy your model to the new file -> undo -> geometry is gone, materials stays

[LeoBonilla]

Re: Export Materials

but i think he means to save *.vismat files all at once.

[BillyRaygun]

Re: Export Materials

Yes. Save the .vismat files all at once.

[wgc2005]

Re: Export Materials

you sound like someone with a lot of materials in a scene...

Not sure but I think you can do it in the stand alone material editor.

[LeoBonilla]

Re: Export Materials

"Not sure but I think you can do it in the stand alone material editor. "

Name one. :-\

[LeoBonilla]

Re: Export Materials

"stand alone material editor" for VFR that can save multiple materials all at once.

[wgc2005]

Re: Export Materials

ok, I just reinstalled it and checked, you are right. The asgvis material editor can't seem to do it.

I do recall that sometime in the past I was able to select multiple materials and export them as a zip file. But maybe I'm thinking of another package I was evaluating at that same time, though they were very different in this regard and it would be hard to confuse them.

The ability to create a library and import/export it as a zip file would be really great. Consider this a wishlist item?

[Alexander Petrov]

Re: Export Materials

1. Create New Folder where you want
2.Go to Vray / Options / System / Distributed rendering / Enable Asset colection / Send to folder / Choose the folder from pt.1
3.Render the scene
4.After Calculation phase/s all textures and HDRI's are colected in that folder.
5.Copy the original Rhino file and paste it in the same folder.

Now you have the model, and all textures in one folder. You can send it, or archive it in RAR format for future usage.
I learn that tip, from Micha

[wgc2005]

Re: Export Materials

awesome!

[BillyRaygun]

Re: Export Materials

1. Create New Folder where you want
2.Go to Vray / Options / System / Distributed rendering / Enable Asset colection / Send to folder / Choose the folder from pt.1
3.Render the scene
4.After Calculation phase/s all textures and HDRI's are colected in that folder.
5.Copy the original Rhino file and paste it in the same folder.

Now you have the model, and all textures in one folder. You can send it, or archive it in RAR format for future usage.
I learn that tip, from Micha

Great tip! Thank you.

Although I'll use the method, I like the idea of adding to the wish list, the ability to save material libraries from a scene.

[Sando]

Hi All,

Does this asset collection still work? I am having trouble in the sense that the materials are delete from the folder once the render is finished or canceled. Has this been changed or is there another way to "package" the rhino model and materials?

So to get around this is a matter of copying the files to another folder during the render process. It works but a tiresome when you have a lot of scenes to send to render farms. Also more chance of user errors.

I'm using Rhino 5.0 with Vray for Rhino 1.50.225

Cheers,
Sando

[fooprobe]

so i've been trying to script this for two days. in theory it should be easy. rhino has functions for accessing materials, but they only work for Vray materials that were created since the file was opened (current session), so that won't work.

In Vray though there is an exposed Sub called GetSceneMaterialNames, and this seems to work, but I keep getting a type mismatch when i try to access the array of material names it returns. i can see that it is an array, and i can see that it has the right number of entries (same number of materials, even if i add or delete materials). it would be great if someone from Chaos Group could explain how to use GetSceneMaterialNames ... once I have a list of Material names, saving all of them is no prob, all the Vray exposed Subs work.


here's my code, works fine until the last line:

------
Option Explicit


Dim VRay
Set VRay = Rhino.GetPluginObject("V-Ray for Rhino")


Dim MatNames
Dim Count

Rhino.Print "start"

VRay.GetSceneMaterialNames MatNames




Count = Ubound(MatNames)
Rhino.Print Count


Rhino.Print MatNames(0)


-------

btw i've tried defining MatNames as an array first, but i get a different type mismatch, apparently when it gets passed to the sub, i guess because i don't know how many elements to define in the array.

Anyone?

[Micha_cg]

@Sando: workaround - couldn't you collect your maps and save it to an other directory during a rendering is running, before the directory is cleaned?

@Fooprobe: maybe a workaround - could you save all materials to a directory and read the paths from the files? I have seen that the the texture paths can be seen at the vismat files. After the operation you could delete the vismats again. But maybe the workaround need to much time.

EDIT: maybe the texture catch can be done per VfR bug report functions, since there is shown a list of all textures with paths too. I have seen now that the column with the texture paths can be selected and per Ctrl+C all paths can be copied to the clipboard. So, at this moment a script is needed that read the paths from the clipboard only. Not a beautiful way, but maybe quite easy to code.