[brodie_geers]

I find the material process pretty frustrating within 3ds Max. I'm wondering if there are any ways to speed it up that I just don't know about. I use SketchUp primarily and only get into 3ds Max for high poly stuff so I'm only a novice. I should also mention that I'm in 3ds Max 2011

Here's an example of a current issue. I'm taking a bunch of Dosch low poly cars in .max format and formating the materials from generic scanline to Maxwell materials. Basically each car has 1 material with about 15 sub-materials (body, mirror, chrome, frame, interior, etc.). The naming convention is pretty similar from car to car but the UV channels are not (so Tire may be channel 3 in one car and channel 12 in another).

Here's my currently workflow, please tell me there's some way to speed this up...

1. Open new car

2. Reassign renderer from scanline to Maxwell

3. Get material -> choose material from library (I saved the material from the first car in the temp library - i can't figure out for the life of me how to save it to a permanent library in 2011)

4. For the materials that are in both my library material and my new car material I just copy from the library and paste into the appropriate slot in the new car material.

5. For other materials I have to click the material, say, Interior.
-click Standard and change it to Maxwell Material
-a window pops up asking if I want to discard the old material or keep it as a sub-material (either option seems to discard the old material so I wish this box would never pop up). I just hit "Keep..." as it's the default.
-click Import
-browse to the correct material
-Click Go to Parent

...Repeat.

Is there anything I'm missing? It just seems like an awful lot of clicks just to select a material I've already made. It seems to me like there should be an additional option when selecting a material besides Maxwell Material and Maxwell Material (Reference), where you select it and it immediately brings up the browser for you to select a Maxwell Material from your library rather than having to go through the pop up window and then click Import.

The problem is made worse by the fact that I have dual monitors and the boxes always tend to pop up on opposing monitors.

-Brodie

[brodie_geers]

Also, even when copying and pasting materials it's quite a bother to have to select a material up top, then go down to the bottom of the screen, right click, find Copy, back to top of the screen to select the other material, back to the bottom, find the material, right click, find Paste. Are there any shortcuts for that?

It's an awful lot of precise mouse-work that would take a lot more time than if I could just cntrl+C, cntrl+V in a couple spots.

-Brodie