MatManager

Nice script, but installation could be easier, maybe .MZP-file with drag'n'drop install ?

This script proves the fact that the Max's material editor (and whole material workflow) needs a complete re-write asap !

Or a real installer actually. I agree with you, I'll figure out a better installation scheme for future releases.

Thanks!

maybe it's not the aim of MatManager, but one usefull feature on SM is to load several .mat files (containing inside some materials) and to get those in use when you want, instead of looking many times for the path in your pc, you have in SM a list with the .mat (loaded only one time) that you can chose and put in use in a moment.

Another nice is the possibility of cleaning the mt editor and load in one time all the mats in scene in the material editor (forgotten the old materials you dont need)

if need some example i can do a screencast!!

regards and keep the good job Marco!!

Well the whole point of MatManager is NEVER having to load a .mat file. Materials stored in MatManager are always present whenever you launch the script.

As for the material editor, MatManager alway lists every material in the scene, and you can easily modify them or send them to the material editor.

I am however always interested in how to improve on MatManager's workflow, so thanks for the suggestions.

Work on this script has been delayed as I've been working on something very very cool, that hopefully will be ready on the next few days. I promise is worth it. =D

great tool, very usefull, maybe one feature i think will be great is the feature of Super Material 3.0 for manage temporaly material libraries qith the Quick materials.

waiting for new releases!!

Thanks!

Could you elaborate on that? I've only seen the sample videos for Super Material and it seems to me that MatManager can already do a lot more with regards to material storage and retrieval.

Thanks Marco! It now works in a scene that it previously didn't, so I assume it fixed it :D

Sure, here's a replacement for the functions file, replacing the old one with it *SHOULD* fix the issue. Let me know how it goes.

Marco could you just fix the bug with the empty multi-mat slot in this current version? Right now MatManager is a no-go as soon as I add my vegetation :(

Yeah, it's certainly doable. I'll have a look at the xref material. Thanks for the idea.

Hey Marco, what would be great is if you had a checkbox somewhere "xref". If on, materials applied would be an xref to that same material in a certain scene. For a while i've been using a workflow where I have a "Materials" scene, where all my library materials are applied to their own teapot and I just xref the material from that scene. I imagine this could be replicated in Mat Manager :)

Very cool!!

I think you should start a new thread for this script. How are objects added to the scene ? Double clicking, dragging, etc...same as with MatManager ?

Hehe thanks. I'll upload a beta version once I'm sure is stable enough and all the required functions are working correctly. Bare in mind that (same as MatManager) this will be a commercial script, probably priced around 10E also while in the beta stage.

Yes, double clicking and such, I've also developed a mouse tracker tool, where you can place and orient the object according to the surface where the mouse is standing over. This can be used to introduce items to the scene, or a separate tool for moving objects already on the scene.

Marco,

That's really great. Looking forward to all these updates. Will you also be able to assign custom (rendered) thumbnails to the saved meshes ?

Sure. And a lot more actually. On MatManager I was saving a material preview and a txt file with the modifier data (besides the actual material in the material library).

In MeshManager, and future versions of MatManager, I'm doing some changes to allow for extra data to be saved along with the materials, like a description or tags (maybe color for the entry on the treeview).
Now, to keep all this data "manageable" I've implemented an XML saving scheme (preview image included).

This means you won't be able to access the preview image directly, but on the plus side it will keep the files on your HD a lot more organized, and void bugs like not beeing able to delete a preview file because windows considers it's still in use (hopefully).

Here's a screengrab of the mesh saving panel, displayed when saving a new mesh and when editing the meshes properties.
You can see that you can refine your initial selection of objects, add tags or description, and inspect and modify the preview image.
The preview is actually rendered at twice that resolution (you can see on the main rollout in the back that the preview square is twice as big).
Finally you can choose the save location, so while the mesh data will be kept centralized, you can actually store your mesh anywhere (of course it defaults to the library folder).

Wow.

Any word on an update? :)

Sure, since the last release I've actually been focusing mostly on MeshManager... which is sorta like MatManager's younger brother I guess, but aimed towards meshes and scene objects.
It includes a pretty neat scene explorer that can be used not only to search or select individual items on the scene but even to modify properties directly, and similar library system as the one in MatManager but of course focused on objects.
Starting a new script has allowed me to improve on a lot of the ideas about interface and data management that I designed for MatManager, and I intend to include all of these on the next MatManager version. Stuff like:

- Ability to assign tags and descriptions to materials
- Ability to search based on tags or name
- Better, more efficient interface design
- Better and more useful preview panel
- Naked girls....no ...wait, not that one...
- Resizable previews
- Much better data collection, storing and sorting- The usual ton of bug fixes
- And a few new toys like the material translator and the XML importer/exporter

Here are some images of the current state of MeshManager that you can use as a guideline for what's coming for MatManager:

Lol! I noticed that about 2 hours ago myself. The problem is apparently that for whatever reason maxscript ignores the current gamma settings when loading images, resulting in very dark previews. You'll also notice that if you double click a library top open the previews panel, that they are display correctly as those are not standard maxscript controls but .NET controls. In any case, I'll have it sorted out for the next release.... damned linear workflow.

Ok, i'm full of shit. The previews do render but they're being read back in by Mat Manager at a gamma of 2.2 (inverse 0.454) so they're very dark. If I disable Max Gamma correction it's fine. If I enable it, but change Bitmap input gamma to 1.0, it's fine, but the LWF requires this to be 2.2, so maybe it's Mat Manager reading these previews in at a gamma of 2.2 (1.0/2.2) rather than 1.0. Could you force it to read the previews at a gamma of 1.0? You can do this in Max (override gamma in the file browser) so I assume it's available in Maxscript. I'm using VRay by the way.

"When I say black I mean black image, not black sphere, so they're saving out as (black/blank)86x86 pixel jpegs."

That's weird. Does this happen with every material or just with some? What rendering engine are you using? MatManager uses the render engine assigned to the Material Editor to render previews, you could try changing that and see what happens.

"Ok got it. It's a blank material slot. In a new scene, in a material slot make a multi-material. Clear slot1 so it says "None". Start MatManager."

Yup, confirmed. I'll fix that for the next version.

"The key thing could be different. Maybe shift+double click to edit or something - just a quicker way/shortcut than the right-click menu!"

Hehe, ok I'll see about adding some faster shortcuts for the more common tasks.

Ok got it. It's a blank material slot. In a new scene, in a material slot make a multi-material. Clear slot1 so it says "None". Start MatManager.

-Double click behavior:
Well, I really tend to use the script more for assigning materials than editing them, so it makes sense for my workflow. However I could have some sort of "default behavior" option in the Options Panel perhaps, so it can be better adjusted to other people's workflow.

-"Unable to convert: undefined to type: MtlBase" ERROR
Never heard of this one before. Does this happen on a particular scene? The fact that it happens when you first open the script could indicate that it's related to the loading of the scene's materials. Please check the Maxscript Listener window, does it say something when this error appears? Also, do you have any extra plugins/scripts that deal with materials?

-"Mine isn't saving material previews correctly" ERROR
When you say they are all black, do you mean that it's a completely black image, or that it's a black sphere (like a black material)?. If you open the jpg directly from your hard drive, is the preview image ok?

In any case, thanks for your help. I hope we can kill these bugs ASAP.

When I say black I mean black image, not black sphere, so they're saving out as (black/blank)86x86 pixel jpegs.

With the error, I tried deleting something in the scene that's triggering it, and am getting a whole bunch of errors in MatManager-FUNCTIONS.mse @ lines 233, 249 and 250. I'll keep trying to nail it down!

The key thing could be different. Maybe shift+double click to edit or something - just a quicker way/shortcut than the right-click menu!

Mine isn't saving material previews correctly. The images are in the directory, but they are all black. I can see it's rendering them correctly in Max though so I don't know what's going on!

Sometimes I get this error when opening Mat Manager:

--Unable to convert: undefined to type: MtlBase

This is excellent. Could you make the default behaviour of double clicking a material to open it in slot1? Right clicking->edit material->slot 1 is a bit of an extra step!

Thanks guys. The 0.8 version will most likely include a material translator, capable of transforming materials from one shader type to another. Not sure how long it's going to take tough...

hey its so cool this script,now its became perfect. I want to see version 0.8 :)

Keep your good work Marco

Very strong, I support!!!

Updated to version 0.7. Check the info for more details.

EDIT: heres what the new Preview Panel looks like:

You can open it by double clicking on a library name and materials can be drag and dropeed directly into the scene objects. =D

Included a small video showing some features. I'll put something a bit more elaborated once I have the time.

Thanks for your purchase, I trust everything went well with the authorization?

buy it :)

I'd say sometime before the end of the week...

so, what u think how many time to have paypal working?

tkx

I uploaded the Help File. Let me know if you guys find any typos...

And you'll find the link to the temporary webpage inside too. The buy page is not up yet... but soon.

Also, I did some small changes to the license system. The script will not be hardlocked to the computer, instead it will be hardlocked to a network device of your choice. This means the license can be moved by moving the device.
Not perfect.. but it's a bit better than pure hardlock to the pc.

Sure thing.

As far as coding all of the features are currently implemented. I do however find small bugs even now and then, so the project is still in beta stage. And there are enough entries in the to do list to keep me busy for the next couple of years =).

My plan right now is to create the webpage and a help file and start selling licenses ASAP. On this side the web page design is completed, and I'm currently working on the filling the pages. The help file is about 25% done and growing rapidly.

Pricing will be 10 euros per license while the program is in beta stage, and will probably increase to something like 15-20 euros once the 1.0 version is out. This will include future patches and updates of course.

Even though I'm not too happy about it, the licenses will be hardlocked to the computers, meaning that the licenses will be non-transferable. I do however plan to have a special discount for a 2 licenses purchase, as most people seem to have at least 2 computers they work on (at least). And of course should someone be interested in purchasing several licenses at one he should contact me for a special discount.

Marco - any update on the ETA of the full version and pricing? I'm on board and would like to add this to our office's SOP ASAP!!

Thanx in advance

doenst add a toolbar entry :( for me at least..
i have loader in startup and MatManager in scripts...

Seems to work fine here...
Are you taking all the right steps?
-Go to Customize -> Customize User Interface, at the top, on the roll down windows.
-On the Keyboard tab, go to the Category roll down box and find the Tools category.
-There should be a MatManager item on the list. You can now select that one and add a shortcut on the right.
-Alternatively, you can go to the Toolbars tab and add a MatManager button to a custom toolbar.

-I think you need to add a import from materal editor active slot function on right click menu for the situations like a user creating some basic materials in material editor to save to the matmanager libs.
-See if is interesting a function that display a tree of Selected materials based on objects selection on the scene, and this tree will update when selection is changed, with a fast replace function to change a material.

Waiting for this great script :)

Yhea at some point I thought about having some kind of CURRENT SELECTION library below the scene materials. Haven't really had time to work on it yet.

thanks!

VRay preview does not work with me either.
A bit disappointing is that you can not assign a material/uvwmap directly to a subobjectselection...this would make life even more easier ;)

I solved the vray issue. The problem is that the lock button on the current renderers panel is ignored by the script, so for now if you want the previews to show up properly, disable the lock, and manually choose vray as your Material Editor renderer (and reload the material from the right click menu as that will update the preview image). The next update will check for the lock and see that the correct renderer is used.

Hadn't thought about the subojectselection. I'll see what I can do...

THANKS!

You fixed the bug in this new version of multi/sub, but i found new ones:
- cant preview vray materials (black sphere) using the renderer vray
- create a new matlib > imported a vray material > when refresh the preview got a index undefined error

Chico Hermida

All the previews render with the same render you are using in the material editor. I'll try to get my hands on vray for some testing anyways.

About the second bug, I found that and has already been fixed. Actually it happens with every material not just vray. Will upload a fixed version soon

I'm still unable to replicate the bug, even running a non authorized version.
However I re-wrote a couple of bits on the material loading when in demo mode. Give a try and see if that fixes your bug.

Thanks for you help and sorry for the inconvenience.

i will improve the step by step:
- start max 2009 x64
- open mat manager
- open material editor
- create a new multi/sub material in slot 1
- reload the matmanager materials
- apply the multi/sub material in a object in the scene with the double click in matmanager
- change the number of multi/sub slots in the material editor
- error and crash.

the error happens in this steps: when apply the multi/sub material with the matmanager on a object in the scene (ex:box) and after this in the material editor change the number of multi/sub slots.
Only happens when apply the material with the matmanager, if apply using material editor runs ok

im trying this steps in my tests to see if the matmanager beta has a beta limit of materials displayed in the multi/sub material like the display limit in the material library tree

Chico Hermida

I will explain the second bug step by step:
- open material editor
- create a new multi/sub material in slot 1
- apply the multi/sub material in a object in the scene with the double click in matmanager
- change the number of multi/sub slots in the material editor
- error and crash.

That's strange but I can't seem to be able to replicate the crash. And also I don't see why it should happen as changing something in the material editor should have no effect on MatManager (that's why you have to update the material trough the right click menu after you are done editing).

In your sequence, when is MatManager opened, right from the start? Or at some point after you create the multi/sub in the material editor?

What happens if you do the same steps but apply the material from the material editor instead of from MatManager? Does is still crash?

Fixed the Library Path bug (hopefully). Re-download and let me know how it goes...

Looking forward to the final version then :)

Ha, you're back...that's good.
Looking forward to a fully functional script. I'm still missing a fast way to show/hide a bitmap on an object. Even the longer way by rightclicking a bitmap which pops up the material editor with the corresponding bitmap, you can not toggle the bitmap in the viewport !! I also hope registration is granted for both work and home PC (I'm specially under subscription for that) and that the license is transferable when you get a new PC !! Since some things are changed in the scripting area in Max2010 I also hope this has been checked !!

Humm, turning off the bitmap in the viewport from the Material Editor seems to work for me. As long as you assigned the material to the scene from MatManager and then edit it in the Material Editor with the right click option you should be able to turn off the map.
It does not work however if the material was assigned on a different session of 3d Studio, as there's no way to recognize the material in MatManager as an instance of the applied material.
I'll see about adding an option to do this from the right-click menu, seems like a good idea.

I haven't yet worked out exactly how the license is gonna work. I'll poke around to see what's the best way to go about it. For now I'm thinking that the licenses sold while the script is in beta stage will not be transferable.

There should be no problems with Max2010.

BUGS:
-When i trying to change the Library Storage Path i get this fallowing error: -- No ""get""function for undefined

-change the number of materials of the multimaterial (ex:50) causes a error: Maxscript dotNet Event handler Exception -- Runtime error: dotNet runtime exception: Not specified argument values out of range, name of paramter: index -- Crash at the end.

Fixing the Library Storage Path now. I'll upload the fixed version ASAP. Also about to shoot one beta tester.

Not really sure what you meant by the second bug. There's no way to change the number of materials of multimaterials from within MatManager. Could you give me a step by step example?

New Version is up... getting close to a final release now.

I'm considering starting to sell licenses trough paypal (or some such system) to whomever would be interested, as the script is now almost completely functional. What do you guys think?

Hi Marco, we're looking forward to it! Plow forward! ;) Thanks!

Well... I guess it's about time to finish this script. I've been on a bit of a vacation from 3dMAX and scripting, but there's a good chance I might have some free time this next couple of months...stay tuned....

Looks great - how do I install the damn thing? :)

i did my own script similar to matmanage due the long time of wait :(, but when this script finally release i will buy certainly

Very well actually... only I've decided to drastically change the way the data structure used by MatManager to a more object-oriented approach. This of course means TONS AND TONS of code re-writing and/or translation... fun!
However once it's done the benefits will be worth the effort. For instance, on the version uploaded here, you can only see the first level of texture maps in the materials. The version I'm rewriting is already capable of displaying the full tree of any material stored (including submaterials, all the texture maps levels in any material, etc.). In turn this will give the user the ability to directly edit or apply to the scene any of the nodes in the tree... pretty cool, if my head does not explode first.

Hows it coming along?

Hi, now everything works fine , i just want to pay for the final version hehe!
i made a script that apply the material with the uvwmap and remove the old uvwmap if it exist, the script don't work in the best way but prevent extra uvwmaps to be applied.
i'm studing maxscript inspired in this script that make our lifes more easier. thank you

Can you make a feature that works like that? you select a group of objects of a chair of plastic and metal, and the feature will list the selected materials and you can mark a specific material to replace to another material in the matmanager browser(ex: platic -> wood) so in this way i can replace materials of selected objects in a few clicks and on the traditional way to do this we need to import the material to material editor and select objects by material then open groups and select by material again, remove the old uvwmap and in the end apply a new material from matmanager.
we can't just replace the material in medit because the same material can be applied to other objects.
can you understand my english? hehe

Kinda of like a Material Replacer? Yes that is certainly doable... good idea!
I'll code an additional tool for matmanager.
Right now there is a tool called Synchronize Materials that does something similar but based on the material's name. You can use that to look for materials in the current selection that have the same name as the ones stored in matmanager and automatically replace them.

I re-did most of the options panel. Some of the options are not pluged-in yet, but you should be able to switch library storage path without problems. Let me know how it goes.

I just tried it, and yes, changing the library storage path is indeed troublesome. I'll fix it and upload a correct version ASAP.

BTW, if you still want to use your own path, make sure you end with a "\" at the end, that might be causing the problems with the previews.

Well, what kind of error is it giving you? I'm running it without problems in MAX 2009.

- can't use the buttons on the options windows
- if change the library storage path creates new "Material editor" and "scene materials" and cant delete the matlibs and do anything
- cant import some matlibs (just imported 1 from 8 i have)
- when apply a material with uvwmap twice creates uvwmap twice
- can't generating any preview

I think its fantastic script look eager for final release

- can't use the buttons on the options windows

Yes, most of the stuff on the options panel is just for show right now. These will be working on the final release. It's all pretty easy stuff to do, so I've been focusing on other more complicated maters.

- if change the library storage path creates new "Material editor" and "scene materials" and cant delete the matlibs and do anything

You mean besides the ones that should already be there? That's odd, I'll look into it. The code that takes care of the changing of the storage path has always been a bit quirky, so a rewrite is probably needed.

- cant import some matlibs (just imported 1 from 8 i have)
This is just a demo, so the script will not open libraries that hold more than 5 materials...sorry.

- when apply a material with uvwmap twice creates uvwmap twice
Well yes, that's the way it's supposed to work. The script always adds the UVW automatically. The best I could do would be have some sort of confirmation dialog pop up if the object already has a UVW Map modifier.

- can't generating any preview
I am guessing this is related to the problem with the library storage path as the same path is used to store the previews. Does this still happen if you use the default path?

i can't make this work fine on MAX 2009 :(

Yes, anything from MAX 9 sp2 onwards should work without problems. Do keep in mind that the .mat files are not backwards compatible, so any library saved in MAX 2009 WILL NOT open in MAX 9 for instance. This however is a (stupid) limitation imposed by Autodesk and not a problem with the script.
Eventually I expect to create my own library format to be able to circumvent this issue.

This script works on max 2009?

Updated version is up!

Crap! seems like the server where I had stored the file has died. No matter, the next version is almost ready, hopefully it will be up on the weekend.

It's actually not very far off from finished. The MatManager code is about 97% done, and right now I'm mostly working on a set of additional tools to go along with it (stuff like "assign random materials" and the "syncronise materials" that robert suggested above).

Be sure to mail the bugs to mbrunetta@gmail.com

thanks!

Hows it coming along? I'm a bit limited by the fact that you can't add more than a certain number of materials - and have encountered some bugs. If your going to charge 10 Euro for it, I'm ok with that. But when do you think you will get to where you have a live version :)

Dunno what I'd be doing wrong. I coped the UI and SCRIPTS folders to the max 9 directory. It recognizes my custom mat libraries but it comes up with that I/O error whenever I click on a shader.

OK, I know what it is then. Right now is still not a good idea to put your own .mat files directly as you will get these kinds of errors. The problem is that MatManager looks for the preview file in the folder with the same name as the .mat file, however since that folder does not exist it gives you that error. You can probably fix the error by manually adding the folder yourself.
Normally MatManager creates the folder when a new library is created from within the script itself, I'll add some code to make sure that if the library does not exist it is created.

On a side note, I've also worked on an IMPORT button (you can see it at the top of the rollout, but is disabled on this version) that will not only import the chosen .mat, but will also look and copy the bitmaps files to the MatManager automatically and replace the bitmap paths with the new locations.

This means that the preview image is not being generated and thus it can't be loaded. Does this happen ON EVERY material or just one in particular?
If it happens on every material it might be that you are not capable of writing files in the library path or some other network problem perhaps.
Check the library storage path in the options panel and make sure it´s a valid path (I'll replace this panel with a more user-friendly one for the next release). By default MatManager creates a "MatManager" sub-folder in 3D Studio´s default material library folder.

I get "Image I/O Error" and missing preview .jpg link when I choose a material in my library. What am I doing wrong? Did I install it correctly?

It's a good tool. Any chance you can make up your mind soon to if your going to sell it or just release it. I need to add more libraries :)

Hehe. Right now the plan is to sell it for around 10 Euro. I´m currently working on a website and a few demo videos for the script (besides completing the script itself of course).

ALSO, here´s a short list of some stuff I´ve added since this beta release:

-A refresh option for materials in the right click menus (also the F5 key).This allows you to update the preview and the maps after a material has been edited.

-Materials that have an UVW map associated will use it when generating a preview.

-As stated above MatManager can now display the submaterials of a MultiMaterial and they have their own icon.

-Created a "Remove Materials" tool button. Nothing fancy I know, but it might be useful to clear stuff from the scene.

-The "Import from selection" option now allows you to import several materials at the same time. When more that one object is selected, a list displaying all materials will be shown, the user can then choose which ones he wants to import.

"Have you thought about a syncronising function?
So, if you open a scene and then let syncronis all materials with a libary.. etc..."

I didn´t get that one, could you elaborate?

"If I use more then one UV Channel I get an error message when the little material Preview is rendered."

I´m looking into that right now. Is that a "missing UVW" error or something else?

"An option for turning of the preview (speed) or make it small would be nice. Indeed I find it to big (performance)."

I´ve already added an option to disable previews for the Material Editor and Scene materials. The preview is rendered EACH TIME you select a material from one of these libraries and this can be pretty annoying. The custom library materials instead only generate the preview once, this is then stored on the HD and unless the user forces an update of the preview, there will be no need to create a new render.
Besides this, I´ve also planed to give the user the ability to use a custom scene for previews.

"Renaming option for Materials would be very nice. Also a Material Renamer could be integrated (there is one script here at scriptspot)."

Have you tried pressing F2? =p
There should also be an option to rename the material in the right click menus. The renamer idea might be interesting, I´ll check it out.

"Sympole: It would be cool if the the symbol could tell me more about the material type. Like Standard, Multimaterial, Vray, MR etc.."

Since this release I´ve added better support for MultiMaterials (they now have their own icon and the submaterials are also displayed). The problem with custom icons for different material types is that there are A LOT of material types so it would be a lot of work, besides these would need to be hard-coded, which is not really nice. I´ve planed to add another icon however for materials that are incompatible with the current renderer. I´ll update the preview once that one is done.

"Drag & Drop: Also quite importend, draging a Material in the Material editor or in the viewport (to apply it). And of course backwards."

I´d love to however it is not possible. Maxscript does not support drag and drop outside the material editor. However I do think that the double clicking the material to assign to the selection is a pretty good alternative. Right now I sometimes find myself double-clicking the materials in the Material Editor =P.

"Search: This one thing I miss in the Material Browser. A search vor Name or Type, etc."

I´m not convinced this would be useful as the ability to create different libraries already permits pretty easy browsing of the materials, but I´ll think about it.

ok, I found the project paht...

 Some Comments:

- If I use more then one UV Channel I get an error message when the little material Preview is rendered.

- An option for turning of the preview (speed) or make it small would be nice. Indeed I find it to big (performance).

- Renaming option for Materials would be very nice. Also a Material Renamer could be integrated (there is one script here at scriptspot).

- Sympole: It would be cool if the the symbol could tell me more about the material type. Like Standard, Multimaterial, Vray, MR etc..

- Drag & Drop: Also quite importend, draging a Material in the Material editor or in the viewport (to apply it). And of course backwards.

- Search: This one thing I miss in the Material Browser. A search vor Name or Type, etc.

Really cool tool.

Have you thought about a syncronising function?

So, if you open a scene and then let syncronis all materials with a libary.. etc...

Also it could be cool to support project folders..

This is really cool, I like it!