What would be the best, most durable way to have many versions of assigned materials in one scene, so that I can easily switch between a version of the vehicle with green paint with white plastic and the same model with metal and dark plastic. Making it extra complex is the fact that not all materials will be assigned…
@poopipe How do you use the material modifier per face? Make a subobject selection with Poly Select modifier? So modifier stack: 2) Material ID Modifier 2) Poly Select 1) Material ID Modifier 1) Poly Select
@occultmonk it certainly looks like you've tested a lot of workflows. Unfortunately, there's nothing out of the box. There are some scripts on scriptspot that might make your life easier. http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/selectionsetmaterial-0 http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/swapmaterials…
Is this for rendering inside 3ds Max? Or is it going to exported to a game engine? I'd suggest using an Excel spreadsheet for keeping track of which items get which materials, and coding up a Maxscript to assign them. http://www.scriptspot.com/search/apachesolr_search/material%20assign…
Multi sub materials work fine for this in most cases. I use them all the time. You can assign IDs using a modifier (which can be instanced) as well as per face. I do that a lot because it means you can make large sweeping changes to material assignments your scene very quickly.
@musashidan Thanks for the detailed answer! I also thought that Multi sub material would be best. I will check out the scripts. @poopipe Thanks, I know that workflow (more or less) but now I am more certain it is probably the best direction to take.
Thanks, I will check it out. But it's not entirely clear to me if it is suited for easy material assignment for multiple versions. Also introducing an external plugin always has the problem of no future support. If it isn't recompiled for a new 3ds max version I could essentially not open/work with older scenes. I would…