[Plugin] Material Replacer (1.1.0) — 12 January 2010

[Bob James]

I have a real need for something very similar to bagatelo's request.

I have a need that doesn't seem to fit "Select by Material" or "Material Replacer" or "Repaint" or "GlobalMaterialChange".

In the development of my major models I was not very consistent with color application. As I've learned more and have gotten much more involved with rendering (TwiLight originally and now Thea) the actual colors are very important.

What I would like to be able to do is select a material/color that is in the model from the materials dialog (or something like bagatelo's idea) and then be able to select all objects that have that color/material. Then I need to be able to isolate them so I can see what's been selected, and, finally, with all of these selected, I can change their color. But I need to know which objects, groups, components are that color so I don't accidentally change one that I don't want changed.

Does anyone have an idea of how to do this or even if it could be done?

[thomthom]

One can select all entities that has material with the same colour.
However, this isolation - not quite sure what you mean there. You mean hide all other faces/edges?
Can't think of nay other way to isolate. You do have the Hide Rest of Model feature in SU, but then everything would need to be inside a group/component - and the API doesn't let us upen up groups etc...

[Bob James]

One can select all entities that has material with the same colour.

That's what I don't know how to do: If I could select all the entities with the same color and then isolate only those entities I could see which ones had the "wrong" color so I could change it.

Very belated update:

Karen Walkerman has done just what I requested above.
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=31378
Thanks again Karen

[Dragoonprogramming]

someone buy thomthom a cookie at base camp and take a picture of it

[thomthom]

I'm not going to Basecamp...

[Bob James]

I'm not going to Basecamp...

Bummer

[dedmin]

Is it possible to change just the material of the picked face?

[TIG]

Is it possible to change just the material of the picked face?

Can't you just paint it ??

[dedmin]

The beauty of this tool - You don't have to open a component to change the material of the faces.
But it changes all the material in the whole model - not just the face You click on.

[TIG]

The beauty of this tool - You don't have to open a component to change the material of the faces.
But it changes all the material in the whole model - not just the face You click on.

BUT your question was to change the material of the picked face !
You mean to change the material of the picked face INSIDE THE GROUP/INSTANCE !
It could be done... but I must leave it to others......

[dedmin]

Yes, inside the group or component. And only of that picked fase.

[lcbrewer]

How do you install this plugin

[thomthom]

Open the zip file and drop the .rb file and the folder with it into the Plugins folder where SketchUp is installed.

[bagatelo]

It would be possible to create a function swap some materials? Something like this:
Imagine a blue box and a red ball. We play the plugin, we click on the box and after the ball, and the colors are reversed. It would be interesting too, if it were possible to exchange materials not in the whole scene, but only on selected objects. Thanks for this fantastic tool.

[cobb89]

Is there any way we can use this plugin to replace a specific material [.skm]..that has been used in the model with vray materials [i.e. .vismats]...??

[thomthom]

Is there any way we can use this plugin to replace a specific material [.skm]..that has been used in the model with vray materials [i.e. .vismats]...??

Use V-Ray's material editor. Right click a material and Import

[jarynzlesa]

thank you for this plugin, i found this very useful.

[Bob James]

This sort of ties in with the current thread:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=36987

[dereeei]

As I can see, this plugin replaces a material globally in entire model. It would be awesome to have option to replace material on a specific object only.
Will you take into consideration my suggestion?
Thank you.

[TIG]

As I can see, this plugin replaces a material globally in entire model. It would be awesome to have option to replace material on a specific object only.
Will you take into consideration my suggestion?
Thank you.

You probably need viewtopic.php?p=63629#p63629 [my olde Global_Material_Replacer.rb tool] - it is dialog driven to choose the material to go and material to use - including 'All' and 'Default-front/back'. It swaps materials in the entire model's active_entities collection, OR IF there's a selection on selected objects... It works inside 'containers'...

[dereeei]

You probably need viewtopic.php?p=63629#p63629 [my olde Global_Material_Replacer.rb tool] - it is dialog driven to choose the material to go and material to use - including 'All' and 'Default-front/back'. It swaps materials in the entire model's active_entities collection, OR IF there's a selection on selected objects... It works inside 'containers'...

As I could see, thomthom's plugin keeps UV mapping, when replacing materials, which is cool . Does yours keeps UV ?
When I use paint bucket tool to change the material on some object, the UV is reset.

[thomthom]

When I use paint bucket tool to change the material on some object, the UV is reset.

Use the Entity Info to replace materials - then the UV is preserved.

[dereeei]

Use the Entity Info to replace materials - then the UV is preserved.

Thanks! I never used it.

[TIG]

[TIG] Does yours keeps UV ?
When I use paint bucket tool to change the material on some object, the UV is reset.

Like with Entity Info... my tool swaps the material but keeps the UV-mapping - so any rotated or scales/skewed textures stay unchanged, but the material uses a different image-file...

[dereeei]

Like with Entity Info... my tool swaps the material but keeps the UV-mapping - so any rotated or scales/skewed textures stay unchanged, but the material uses a different image-file...

Will this affect Twilight metadata? If I change a "wood" material with a "metal" material, both with textures... will it render as "metal", or just the image is changed and uses metadata from initially "wood" ?

[TIG]

Like with Entity Info... my tool swaps the material but keeps the UV-mapping - so any rotated or scales/skewed textures stay unchanged, but the material uses a different image-file...

Will this affect Twilight metadata? If I change a "wood" material with a "metal" material, both with textures... will it render as "metal", or just the image is changed and uses metadata from initially "wood" ?

You could always try it yourself...
A Twilight material is associated with a SKP material.
If you have a gray RGB material in your SKP you can tell Twilight to substitute it with a silver metal - shiny/textured/etc.
If you have a buff RGB material in your SKP you can tell Twilight to substitute it with a golden metal - shiny/textured/etc.
If you swap around materials in your SKP it'll be reflected in corresponding changes in the next Twilight render.
How would changing a face's material in the SKP NOT affect the Twilight render? AND how might it affect the Twilight material - which is associated on a one-to-one relationship - gray=silver, buff=golden etc?? It only swaps around SKP materials by name it doesn't redefine them or rename them. I'm not sure what happens if you swap the names of materials over in your SKP - presumably if you said in the SKP material Browser gray=>gray1 and buff=>gray and gray1=>buff, then if Twilight uses a material-name look up table for how to render each of its materials based the SKP's current material-names then it would indeed swap what was silver with golden and vice versa... Perhaps useful on occasion, but not the point of this current discussion or thread.

So to recap, swapping a face's SKP material gives the face that other SKP material, the face's material's UV-mapping comes from the face itself; whatever 'correspondence' Twilight a material has with the SKP material is kept intact and it renders accordingly...

[samyell77]

Hi thomthom,
Love this plugin by the way. Is it possible to have the material name display whenever using the eyedropper tool and not just when running your ruby script. Having the name of the material display is SOOOO handy and I'd love it if the eyedropper always displayed the material name. Is this possible? I work on mac so currently trying to work out what material is what is pretty tricky due to the absence of a list view in the material browser. Also would it be possible to move the 'material replacer' to a context menu so you could access if using a right click rather than going to the drop down menus?
Fantastic tool tho - thanks!
Sam

[thomthom]

I can't modify the native SketchUp tools I'm afraid.

As for context menu, I could, but then someone would ask me to reverse it. But I'll see if I can send you a modified version.

[samyell77]

Would really appreciate that - thanks!

[samyell77]

Hey Thomthom - don't worry about sending the revised ruby. I hadn't realised that I can invoke plugins using key commands so have set up a keyboard short cut to your material replacer now. Thanks