[numerobis]

Instancing of textures in MXM's

[Half Life]

I'm not sure I get how and why?

Best,
Jason.

[Maximus3D]

I think i get it, instacing of already existing textures reduces the memory footprint. Instead of adding the same bitmap numerous times you simply instance it.
Not a bad suggestion as long as no changes needs to be done to the bitmap as those will instantly be applied to all the instances too.

/ Magnus

[Half Life]

But the maps are not embedded into the MXM, the are referenced links so they have no additional memory footprint no matter how many materials they may be used in...

Best,
Jason.

[numerobis]

there could be two different methods of instancing:

- the way it works in max, where the complete slot is instanced with all settings.

- or so, that only the texture will be instanced and you can make different adjustments in the slots. This would be the more useful method i think.
e.g. when you have a material that only uses one texture with different settings in maybe diffuse and reflection layer for refl0, refl90, bump and roughness,
you would only have to define one slot to change all textures of the material - very helpful if you have a bunch of similar materials with only different textures (leaves, people,...)

the other option to speed up this work would be a texture replacer, that lists all textures of a material and lets you replace them with different ones...

[Half Life]

I think I understand now -- the idea is basically to allow for separation of the image properties (tiling, adjustments, etc) from the linked image... so that any image can replace the current one and keep the settings intact. Then there would be some mechanism to manage swapping the image in all the slots it appears in the material at once.

Is that correct?

If so my answer would be as far as new material creation goes, I think it might be better to use this request: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... =2&t=35838 and just set the wizard to ask for which maps you'd like where. (which we've already voted for )

Best,
Jason.

[numerobis]

yes, this wizard thing would be a way to go, but i think the direct way via instancing would be good too, because you don't have to set up a wizard entry for every different material you only want to change the textures.
this can become very confusing with too much entries