[martinnichols]

Hi guys,

First time posting here, sorry for the basic questions.

I just updated to a Maxwell 2.7 win64, and I am trying to install a Maxwell Materials Collection.

1. For some reason all the materials are zipped individually inside each folder. ex: the folder Architecture has 765 zipped material folders inside. When I try to unpack all, it only unpacks one material folder at a time. I don´t want to spend all month unziping. Any tips on how to do this?

2. When I have mangaged to unzip these files. How do I get them working in Maxwell? So far I have accessed materials through the material browser, is there a better way of embedding the materials in maxwell?

Thank you

[Mihai]

But where is this material collection from? Isn't it just a download from the MXM Gallery? In that case I'd just use the online search directly from your plugin or Studio, then drag & drop the material you want from the search list into your scene. It will be download, unzipped, and placed in your scene.

[richardfollett]

I have just installed 2.7.20 on X64 and I have limited materials.
In past there was a material download (100mb) file to install all standard MXM files.

Can someone please point link to me?

Thanks

[Thomas Theuerkorn]

This is an old topic but little seems to have changed since then, or maybe nothing.

I'd like to have some form of tutorial or guideline how to best install the downloaded materials from the Maxwell library. As it has been pointed out, the downloads don't have a folder structure and if you want toinstall them locally you sooner or later will run into duplicate names of files. If you keep the folder structure of one material per folder it's far from an intutive way to browse say 100 materials.

Suggestions?

[Mihai]

If working with Studio, you'll find in Preferences>MXM Gallery an option to either download the MXM files + textures into your current project folder (meaning where the currently open MXS file is located), or specify an alternative folder.

If working with a plugin, I think it also downloads the MXM to the folder where your current file is, but I'm not sure. In any case, if I download a material for a particular scene, and I see I want to keep it for future use, I locate the downloaded MXM file, double-click to open it in MXED and then File>Save as and save it to my main MXM folder where I keep my whole collection, which in turn has some subfolders like Metals, Leather etc. MXED will ask if you also want to copy over the textures to the folder where you "resave" this MXM. I just click yes here.

If materials I create myself and want to re-use, I only copy the MXM file to my MXM folder, because I keep my texture assets separate in this case. I may often re-use the same grime texture for example so then it makes no sense to have 10 or more copies of it in my MXM folder.

So it's only for downloaded materials I also copy over the textures. In the future if I want to transfer this MXM to another computer, again I can just double-click it, it opens in MXED and File>Save as, I specify a folder and I have my MXM and any files it uses. Then I can just copy that folder to the new computer. This way I don't have to go searching and copying manually for every texture an MXM is using.

[Thomas Theuerkorn]

If working with Studio, you'll find in Preferences>MXM Gallery an option to either download the MXM files + textures into your current project folder (meaning where the currently open MXS file is located), or specify an alternative folder.

Thanks for the response. I think embedding in a current project is a good way to avoid conflicts, but also doesn't build my library for later use. See, my problem is that when down loading the materials from http://www.maxwellrender.com/materials/ it's a ZIP file. Sure, I could download via Studio's Resources, but that doesn't work for me on one computer due to a restrictive firewall, and it's also not building a local library to overcome the connectivity issue.

I guess the deeper question is how to handle duplicate names for files in the library with different content. So for instance, if I have a "grime.ior" or "brick.tif" for one material and a different "grime.ior" and "brick.tif" for another ... how does Maxwell know which one to use for the respective material. I obviously can't copy them both in the same folder. Is there a priority by folder structure (as I assume the search paths are of equal priority). My goal would be to have the material definition in groups by material type and the other files like texture and ior in separate folders similar to the default materials. But that does NOT work it the same names.

I am surprised that this does not seem to be heavily discussed as the manual really doesn't go into this issue at all.

[Mihai]

Personally I don't run very often into situations where textures have the exact same name. What you can do is simply to put your textures in the same folder as the MXM. Maxwell looks first in the paths set in the MXM itself, if it still can't find the textures it looks in the same folder as the MXM, and after that it looks to see if there is a "textures" subfolder in the folder where the MXM is. If it still can't find them there, it will look in the texture paths set in either Studio or Maxwell material path preferences (also under Prefs). And if that still doesn't work it will finally ask you to locate the textures.

I think the easiest for you would be to request to change the firewall permissions and simply pick and download directly into your scene any material you want for a project. If you happen to like that material, save it to your material library and choose to also save the textures when it asks you. Then it will create a "textures" subfolder to where you chose to save the MXM.

For me it's like I said above, I keep all MXM files in a main folder which has subfolders based on category etc. I also have folders of texture assets (which are not necessarily used exclusively for creating Maxwell materials so these folders are in a completely different place than my MXM folders).

- if it's a material I create myself from scratch, I tend to link to the textures in my texture assets folders.
- if it's a material I download for a project, and I like it, I just resave it to my MXM library folder and let MXED create a "textures" subfolder in the folder where the MXM file is. During this process, if it finds a texture in that folder with the same name it will ask if you want to override it. If you don't then abort the save, and save the MXM in another location, again choosing to also copy the textures there, rename the textures and then open the MXM in MXED and relink to the new textures. A bit convoluted but happens very rarely.

There should be maybe a standard implemented for the online material library, that all textures should be prefixed with the name of the material file.

[Thomas Theuerkorn]

Thanks much. I ended up making material type folders (i.e. "Wood") with a dedicated folder for the textures in each. That way, duplicates are kept to a minimum. Some materials from the library have a fixed path, which the material editor can easily fix. It turns out that some material families still have duplicate file names (like "C" for color map and "B" for bump map etc..). I that case I simply renamed the duplicates and updated the MXM via Material Editor. Kinda cumbersome, but it's just once ... hopefully.

I agree, a unique id per material which all names start with, unless they're truly universal (like IOR files) would be a good start. Then again, some materials reuse the same maps and then it might need a different solution.