Local Materials Woes

Could Bentley please set the Local Materials functionality back to the way XM handles them.

With V8i it assumes you want to make all materials local materials, and tries it's hardest to make you use them this way.

Every time I change anything in the Material Editor, it converts the material to a Local Material.

To change it back to a Library Material, I have to first "Copy to Library" then "Remove Local Copy". But when I try to "Remove Local Copy", it gives me the following message "Are you sure you would like to delete the selected local material[s]?  Deleting a local material will also delete all assignments and attachments for the material." If I say yes, it deleted the assignment, which is not what I want. I have to close V8i and open the file in XM and then "Remove Local Copy" Most of the time this works, but if I use any of the Luxology features not compatible with XM, I lose them.

I have the variable MS_DEFAULT_TO_EXTERNAL_MATERIALS = 1 set in my ucf file, but it doesn't make any difference.

I'm getting a bit frustrated with this and my wintab troubles, making the whole Luxology rendering experience a bit of a letdown.

Don't get me wrong, Luxology is a great new feature. But my experience so far has been a bit of a struggle.

Regards

Michael Komnacki

 

  • Same here. I love Loxology but local material copies dirve me nuts!

  • I agree too.

    Why does material assignment need to make a local copy of the definition by default?
    If I convert my palette to external tables and palettes I get the behavior I expect but I have to go through a mat file. The mat file is advantagous if I want multiple dgn files to refer to the same assignment table (or if i want optional assignments I can save/load optional mat files), but I have to do this for each dgn file.

    Perhaps making this change to my seed dgn will work? what mat file will the seed refer to?

  • I'll add my support to this request.

    You'd be amazed how much time I spend jumping around files to try to make things right.

    I d think it is useful to be able to edit a material in a file locally, because it allows you to edit some materials with functions that have a high rendering cost say for glass that is close to the camera, or a local floor to a room that you wanted to add blurry reflections too.

    If you have updated from library and then leave a file I'd say either the local copy should be deleted at file close, or if its retained it should be retained but in sync with the library.

  • hmm - I don't really understand the problems with local materials.

    From my point of view it is one of the best changes. The external mats are horrible for archiving, we had customers where one person changed the standard/centralized material palette and the next one wonders why he/she wouldn't get the expected results.

    Currently with a local material you have everything in your file (except the images). The local material knows if it is in sync with the lib material, it was once taken from (at least I had no probs with that).

    I see no reason to delete the local material,

    1. you can always sync it with the lib (normally the green flag tells you it is in sync),

    2. if the lib is not reachable (for whatever reason) you still have the informations.

    3. transfer to anyone else, are you sure he has the same settings for lib ? What if this one is outside your company ?

    4. get a project archived 3 years ago, can you asure that none of the materials have changed (currently never because you need others for luxology :) )

    Think about those and tell me why those 4 points aren't important, and you really don't need local mats !



  • For one off files with no project material library, local materials are perfect, they cut out a lot of overhead, but...
    the problem is where you are trying to synchronise a material changes across multiple files. Having to go into each dgn file and sync the local materials is not efficient.

    The way I would like it:

    1. By default materials should look to the project library (dgnlib or pal - I prefer dgnlib, pal is so yesterday, but required for BA)

    2. By default material assigments to geometry should be stored in each dgn file without making a local copy

    3. If an alternate assignement table is required it can be saved/loaded to mat files.

    4. Local materials should be regarded as the last resort override/alternative to the project library.

    As for archiving I do tend to make a local project copy of the texture/bump maps when I create the material. The up side is that it allows me to tweak those maps without upsetting other projects. The down side is I have file duplication across projects. This is why I would like to see materials packaged individually, so I can copy n paste office library materials to the project library, maps and all. (Perhaps instead of packaging - when copying materials in the editor an option could be added to also copy the associated maps to the project folder...)