[baribua]

i may be missing something basic here but i don't know how to organize my materials.
when i work on a project i import the relevant mxm materials, i put them all in volume 1. the problem is i have now too many, what makes it hard to find the one i want, im afraid that if i delete it when i open an old file i wont have its textures and materials with it. secondly its really annoying that i need to recognize it by name and cannot see the materials till i open it.
i would appreciate some tips on this matter.

Yael

[JDHill]

Hi Yael,

when i work on a project i import the relevant mxm materials, i put them all in volume 1. the problem is i have now too many, what makes it hard to find the one i want,

Do you mean that you are importing the same .mxm files into the database each time you work on a project? It should not be necessary to do this under normal circumstances. If you did import the same .mxm twice, you would have two separate materials - there is no reason why you need to put them both into 'Volume 1'. You can create a new volume at any time, and you can move them around using drag/drop to organize them however you wish.

im afraid that if i delete it when i open an old file i wont have its textures and materials with it.

In addition to being saved in the database on your machine, materials which are used in a SW file are also saved directly in that file. When you open a SW file and it contains materials which aren't found in the database, they will will be added to the database automatically. This does not include textures - the same as with .mxm files, textures are used by reference, so if you open an old file, it will be missing textures if you have deleted or moved them to new locations.

secondly its really annoying that i need to recognize it by name and cannot see the materials till i open it.

If you right-click on a material or volume in the database and choose 'Volume View', then you will be shown thumbnails for each material in that volume. There are several reasons why thumbnails are not shown directly in the database-tree, mostly having to do with memory. You may not have very many materials in your database, but it can easily handle several thousands - with thumbnails of 200x200 each, this may add up to many megabytes of memory.

Please let me know if this information is helpful to you.

Cheers,

JD