I’m interested in trying this – incredible looking – new materials GUI, but I dont see any builds on graphicall.
thanks.
Indeed!! I’ve tried downloading the add-on, but no luck getting it to work …
I couldn’t get it to work either… win 7-64. Although it appears some have had success. I cant wait!
Heres the link for everyone:
Try downloading the zip-file again. All I did to get it to work was extract it, there you’ll find a folder called ‘shader-tools’ in it are two sub folders one for ‘MACOSX’ and ANOTHER ‘shader-tools’ folder, copy over the one for your operating system to the file-where-you-keep-blender/2.61/scripts/addons. Then enable it in user preferences.
Hope this helps
It looks nice, works on win7 64 bit, but there is not support for cycles nodes, therefore i am waiting … After support cycles it would be very usefull feature from category must be…
really nice addon, does anyone know how to make
“display files as thumbnails” the default for the browser?
that would be alot nicer than having to click the button each time… 
Cool addon though, come in handy for quick concept.
apparently you have to launch blender in something called CONSOLE MODE
to get this to work.
However, I have no idea how to do this.
start bender from console, maybe? haven’t tried, but sounds like that might be it.
it works for be with official blender 2.61…(Win64 windows 7)
I have by config folder setup as portable(inside the 2.61 folder not in appdata)
Anyhow, it crashed the first time i tried to load a material, but when it exited it did something
and then the next time when i loaded the addon it works fine… you just have to click “open at the bottom”
then the browser thing comes up, have it point look in “Material Data base” that should now be added
to your bookmarks…
then at the top click “display mode for thumbnails” then select whatever material you want…
Okay re downloaded, and working now! Apparently the developer updated the file.
Win 7-64.
Wow this makes Blender so much better ! I cant believe you guys didn’t have something
like this sooner. But better late than never.
ATTENTION CODERS : Can we please have a browser control where we can set
THUMBNAILS to always on ? thanks
ATTENTION ALL: Maybe someone can collect/ create new material presets, and set up a down-loadable database of new ones? { Rather than all alphabetized, as it is now, it would be nice to have the browser organized with a METALS section, GLASS section, GROUNDS, WOODS, RUSTY, ORGANIC sections, etc. }
PS - Hopefully Cycles and Vray developers will quickly follow suit!
@Felix_Kütt - thanks but I dont know what the console is.
@holyenigma74- thanks for instructions, they helped.
@ebb - thanks, yes a fresh download did it.
To enable correct operation on Win 7 Blender 2.61, I had to loosen up the permissions of the Shadertools add-on folder after copying it to the correct Blender folder. Showing the Blender console displayed the permission errors. It now works well, here’s hoping the material libraries make it online!
I just downloaded it fresh, and I’m using the official 2.61 build. When I click the checkbox to enable the addon, nothing happens. Nothing printed to the console either.
EDIT: btw, I tried from console mode too
I just re-installed my Windows and had some trouble installing Shadertools again
so here is a little guide.
- Download the RC version on the website(the other version doesn’t enable)
- After you have it enabled save as default in the “User preferences Panel”, next
Navaigate to the bottom of the Material tab - Click “Configure” make sure its pointing to your material database… it should be.
- Click “save”, under “select category” in the dropdown Choose “Car Caint” then Click “OK”
- this should now configure it… and add the “Material Database” to your bookmarks…
- click open… the browser should open, in your bookmarks click “material database”
- click display as thumbnails at the top of the browser.
enjoy.
you may have to open Blender a couple times for this to work,
since it has to create files, the main one being you bookmark file that is in your config folder.
OK. That got it to work. Thanks. well, One thing that’s worth mentioning … I had to install in “portably”, that is, in the blender install folder, NOT in my personal user scripts folder. Also, it gave me load errors, yet still loaded materials.
How do I access materials by category tho? Also, it would be REALLY nice if I could just have a material browser open in one window with the 3D scene above it, and drag a material onto an object. I know blender supports drag-n-drop these days.
anyhow, the database of materials is nice to have.
EDIT: now that I’ve gotten it to work and see what it is, how it works … while it’s a nice collection of materials, it’s not particularly impressive as a Material Library Manager. At least not yet.
artao, it has a “search” function on the left side, you can search for things…
for instance if you are look for a “skin” shader type in “skin” etc…
or if you want “rust” type it in… etc…
@artao
sure, but it’d be really nice if one could browse by category. or are you saying that “searching” a category name will show all of that category?
I’ll have to use it more and get more used to it. Perhaps try to bring in materials from various 'Library" files I have lying around and add them in.