For Modo user switching to Blender 2.8

without that material but with polygon tag, that you can find in
Modo_Material_Polygon_Tags
for any selected object/s.
Which you can select (“+”) and reassign with any new material in scene

For now I just import FBX file in configured scene in blender and replace materials one by one for the 100500 objects selected one by one…
You can imagine how many time it took for 100500 objects…it’s a hell in flesh

OK,
There is no hint then that new Assignments get in,
but it is there and i can search for it and re-use it.
That helps.
Thanks.

OK, video shows it’s tedious up to impossible.
I hope Blender users found better workarounds to share.

But I was totally unaware of the Slot + Material Dropdowns
in Shading Tab !!! I always went through properties palette only.
And I never really understood how and that there is a Slot (mask)
and Material in there. And how to use it to assign multiple Materials
to one Mesh.

Thanks for your Video. It helps at least for me, to better understand
Blender’s material workflow.

But the difference between Modo and Blender is that
Modo has a a single Material Mask that you can assign to
multiple objects,
while Blender seems to have a separate Slot/Mask for
every assignment. So you can’t change one Slot’s Material
to change all.

More like C4D where you have to Select all Objects to make
re-assignment or changes.

Another thing I see is that others most times do UV-ing for
any single Item.
While I for my Archviz use 95% of simple Cube Mapping only.
This way e.g. a single tile-able Brick Material will fit all Brick Objects.

And fine in Modo is that the Texture Map Size happens inside the
Material group and so applies to all Objects.
And that you can even use different Mapping Scales for every Texture.
(Opposed to C4D where the Mapping Scale applies to the whole
Material)

Before you start any kickstarter campaign you should first find a developer willing to take it on. Before you go looking for a developer you should indeed have a list of targets to achieve. Preferably with some design doc.

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Yes I already have a list of targets and some design, I just need to find some developers that are willing to do that.

does anyone know how to create and tweak a material without assigning it to an object ?

I’m afraid you can’t… That’s one of Blender’s weird limitations…

You can preview it, but it always be assigned to some object, I think

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There’s a way to make this faster.

  • Select all objects you want to change at once. Important: they have to have the same material slot configuration (so like here Slot 1 = Window.001, Slot 2 = Dark Metal.001, etc.)
  • Change the material assignments on the active (last selected) object.
  • Then press Make Links (CTRL-L) --> Materials.

This replaces the materials on all selected objects with all the material slots of the active object.

You can also use select linked (SHIFT-L) --> Material for the initial selection, this will select all objects which have at least one material slot with the currently active material. But don’t use this if the objects have the materials in different slots.

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The main problem in Blender is, that the slots are basically nothing else then a multi-sub material with IDs. The same you will find in 3dsmax, Maya etc. Modo uses a tag system with true names, but also has shader tree, that works like a scene filter system. C4D for example, uses selection tags for shading, but that’s not a good alternative, as they are not unique IDs. However it got tons of tools to replace them, even a replace materials by materials from scene X. Yet the tags have no relation ship to the material.
Most people avoid multi IDs on objects, or break up the models by material before reorganizing a scene. I went through all this, till I found Modo and it was like a dream. So, I know its extra work for simple work, but total joy for complex tasks.
I think in Blender, you have to wait till more clever add-ons come with some solutions. Like replace Material in selected objects, etc. Also you can try doing that on the scene view in outliner, where you can see more details to the structure of your scene. I use that to replace textures, as it lists all. But it really hasn’t got a lot commands… yeah outliner, it could be so helpful, but it need tons of development work.

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What if you want to instance a material but you want to keep unique only some of the channels ? Do you have to use the groups in the material editor or there is a better way to achieve that ?

I am also having problems with the uv alignment. there are no tools in blender for aligning all selected uv islands vertically or horizontally. how can I do that ?

You really need to try to forget how beautiful and functional Modo’s material tree is.

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I know Modo makes all the other softwares look complicate.

…so if I want to save a material I have to create a group and then save the scene. open a new scene and import it as a node from the group panel… but what if I want to save the material only and I don’t want to save the geometry I have in the scene ? can I do that?

also can I open multiple scenes (files) and copy paste stuff between those scenes ? (just like in modo)

Hi, you can do both:
Use Append > Material
You have to disable “Filter” in append dialogue (I think this is a bug).
I have a material.blend, I append created materials from projects for later use in there.
You can do this for other things like compositor nodes, worlds, collections and many more.

Ctrl+C Ctrl+V copy almost everything from one Blender instance to another.

Cheers, mib

Personally, I use Modo for WIP in my company.
And Blender at home beacasue it’s free and so powerful. I love boths soft. :grinning:

That is what I did for a long time, I used them side by side. No need to give up if you like certain features in certain apps.

Unfortunately that does not work for materials. I thought that this was possible at some point in the past.