Materials Question: Saving/Exporting modified Material in Model

[Rodney]

I seem to recall a simplemethod for doing this...

Perhaps someone can set me on the right path.

 

I have a material that is saved as two different materials. The main difference between the two is that one is set with displacement and the other is for color.

Both materials can then be applied to a group to better control the texture.

That's not part of the problem... just a little background/setup.

 

I dropped the color material onto a different group in the model and tweaked the settings.

I like the changes so want to keep that new material.

The issue is how to save/export that material as a new material.

 

If I stepped away from the computer for awhile the answer might come to me but for now I'm at a loss.

Am I missing something really basic?

 

I know that I can grab the material settings from out of the text file

 

 

Edit: Editing/extracting the data from Project/Chor/Action textfile doesn't appear to be an option either because the material tweaks reference the original material.

Hmmm....

[Rodney]

Oooo.... oooo..... I think I've got it.

For a second there I was really wondering how the heck I could get it done.

 

The answer isn't exactly straightforward but is easy once we know how.

 

Let me see if I can make this an opportunity to share a video.

 

 

Gah! So close but nope.

[robcat2075]

I dropped the color material onto a different group in the model and tweaked the settings.

I like the changes so want to keep that new material.

The issue is how to save/export that material as a new material.

 

 

Did you make the tweaks in the Material or in the shortcut to the Material that is in the model?

 

If you did it in the Material you just need to resave the material under a new name.

[Rodney]

If you did it in the Material you just need to resave the material under a new name.

 

No. That would indeed be easy.

 

I suppose you could say I'm looking for a way to save/export a moment in the life of a material that changes over time for reuse later.

It's hard to believe I've never run up against this before.

 

The method I thought was going to work was to rename the instance and then drag/drop it back into the Materials listing in the PWS (which surprise suprise... actually works!).

The problem there is that this looks like it shouldn't be something we can do because the new material isn't actually a new material but has drivers that point to the original.

For a moment when I saw the new material there I thought I could save it out as if it were a new material but unlike regular materials the option to Save isn't available.

[robcat2075]

My next idea is to set up two A:Ms side-by-side and manually write the altered properties from the tweaked material into a copy of the original material.,

[Rodney]

My next idea is to set up two A:Ms side-by-side and manually write the altered properties from the tweaked material into a copy of the original material.,

 

Yes, along those same lines we can set up two materials (copy out a duplicate of the original and bring it back in under a new name) and then copy the settings over to the new material.

Of course when the material get complex this becomes unrealistic.

 

I needed a basic shape to test some of this out so I made a quick mushroom and added a very basic Perlin material.

The only material in this rendering is that basic material tweaked in each instance (three instances) in the Model.

 

It would be handy to be able to save out those tweaked materials for reuse.