[Josephus Holt]

I'm aware how if I hold down the Ctrl key and scroll through the material texture xy tiling and offset values that it changes all the maps in that bsdf, but sometimes I need to get smaller increments (not whole numbers) and have to enter that with the kbd...is there a way to do that so that all the maps in the bsdf change at the same time?

[JDHill]

Yes, that would be:

1. place the cursor in the textbox
2. change the value
3. hold down CTRL
4. place the cursor in a different box

Basically, the change will be committed when the current control (i.e. textbox) loses focus - if the modifier keys are being held down when that happens, then the CTRL (or CTRL+SHIFT for all textures in the material, remember) rules will be applied. At one point or another, I'll make it so you can change the scrolling resolution of individual parameters to suit your taste...all in good time though.

[kami]

sorry for mentioning this again, but reading that you'll plan on change something in those menus made me think about one suggestion I posted several month ago.
Those holding down CTRL+SHIFT after/while changing the texure values creates a lot of questions and is not very comfortable to use. So my wish would be to have a switch, where I can link these values in all textures of one material. While working on archviz most of the time, I really don't change any values seperately (over 90% of the times)
And since I have to work with a few people who are just learning rhino/maxwell I see, that they sometimes forget or just don't know that they can change all textures with holding down these buttons and I see them change every texture individually which takes a lot of time and leads quickly to mistakes.

[Polyxo]

Those holding down CTRL+SHIFT after/while changing the texure values creates a lot of questions and is not very comfortable to use. So my wish would be to have a switch, where I can link these values in all textures of one material. While working on archviz most of the time, I really don't change any values seperately (over 90% of the times)

Hi Kami,
while I would be fine with such a global switch you requested - do you know how freakin awesome that "not very comfortable to use feature" actually is?
I'm grateful whenever I use textures in the Material-Editor and the present implementation just works great for me.
Every other renderer I know forces you to change your mapping parameters value by value and that's also the way you have to do it in Studio AFAIR - and
most other Maxwell-plugins. So this is a complaint from a quite privileged position

[kami]

you are absolutely right, polyxo.
the great rhino plugin is the main reason I still use maxwell, and only maxwell!
complaining about it is really on the highest level one can imagine
so I really appreciate the feature, but I think it could be improved, even though it's still so much better than the mxed and mxst (which I both never use... )

cheers,
kami

[JDHill]

Well, there are alot of things I'd like to do here:

a. implement a 'use image aspect ratio' switch that optionally replaces the separate tile x/y controls
b. implement textures as separate objects which may be 'linked' to multiple slots in the material
c. specify textures by filename only, with the folder optional. If no folder is given, the texture is found in a list of directories stored in the material, or in preferences
d. etc...

...eventually though, I'd like to abandon the complex material editor completely, in favor of a brand new 'smart' UI - basically, this would be realized in a simplified new type of material that allows you to build most types of materials in a simple, logical, and more high-level way. In that case, power-users would use MXED for building completely custom materials, but for most cases, you would build materials using a totally different paradigm, where the material is more concerned with how you think than it is with how Maxwell does. That's not a really small adventure though.

[polynurb]

...eventually though, I'd like to abandon the complex material editor completely, in favor of a brand new 'smart' UI - basically, this would be realized in a simplified new type of material that allows you to build most types of materials in a simple, logical, and more high-level way. In that case, power-users would use MXED for building completely custom materials, but for most cases, you would build materials using a totally different paradigm, where the material is more concerned with how you
think than it is with how Maxwell does. That's not a really small adventure though.

[polynurb]

..jokes aside.. your database manager had/has it all.. the original idea to store all components as proxys is ingenious.

all i would wish for is a graphical interface for the nodes/components other than the "boxy" database manager window..

so that it is possible to establish groups of materials with downstreamed hirachies and bypass flags.. so one could create a set of master materials .. creat childern of it and control all them via the master, although some settings maybe "bypassed" like only replace the set of textures or colors, but still control eg. roughness & nd values for all children simultanioulsy...

in almost every project i have to create variations of materials for clients, or similar materials that only differ in color (like 4 types of leather) and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of how things evolve..