Activate-Deactivate Materials

[Ramón López]

Hello, there is a way to activate or deactivate certain materials to render it or not in the same way you can activate or deactivate any object visibility clicking in his Proyect Workspace's eye or something similar? I have some time consuming materials that I'd like deactivate until the last final render but I can't find the way, althought I think it must be there (I hope) ...THANK YOU!

[Rodney]

You know I thought there was a Active element in materials but I don't see it there now. Strange.

 

The good news is that materials are easily dragged and dropped onto models so you could do that.

Delete and/or drop it back on as necessary .

 

Another option would be to save another version of your model without the material and swap the shortcuts to the model out in the Choreography.

 

Yet another option (which works in most cases but not all) would be to make the material 100% transparent.

You should be able to do this simulateously on multiple materials.

 

Submitted as possible workarounds until we locate that elusive 'Activate' option!

[Ramón López]

Ey, THANK YOU very much! I have been dragging the most weight materials in & out of the model as you said until now but I hoped another more quick, easy and less "destructive" solution were possible... After read you I have try to make a special "bucket" folder for each model to temporary contain the materials that I want deactivate in a more ordered way, but I can't put the material inside that folders so it seems doesn't work... Well, I hope you can find that little but usefull feature soon or I'll have to start to ask for that little eye near each material in the Proyect/Property windows... CIAO! And Thanks again for your quick and dedicate response )

 

PS/EDIT: ...Ah, and I'll study your last proporsal!

[Rodney]

Another option:

 

Point the model to external materials (i.e. not embedded in the model)

Then have two sets of materials; the one you want for final and a simple or empty one.

 

Yet another option that I didn't think of before but can be quite useful to keep render times down:

Don't use materials at all in the final. Instead render the materials out on a plane/patch and use them as decals.

As you can't turn decals off either... not sure how this would help.

[Ramón López]

Point the model to external materials (i.e. not embedded in the model)

Then have two sets of materials; the one you want for final and a simple or empty one.

 

...Hum! Didn't thought on that possibility! Definitely I'll try it, I think that with a little of planification/organization it could be very practice, yes ...Anyway I'll continue missing that mentioned eye but "you can't have all (no se puede tener todo)" I suppose... Well, THANKS AGAIN!

[Rodney]

no se puede tener todo

 

I need to commit that one to memory.

[Ganthofer]

If I may add something here. While it is true, there is (no) OFF in the Decal settings, you can set the Percentage (below the Image Type setting) to 0 (zero) at the lowest level of the Decal images and the result is the Decal does not show. This may be helpful