Feature request: Load materials on startup

[magic]

Hi all,

I have a bunch of materials (.mat files) that I got from New World Graphics some years ago, and I use them a lot.

However, I find it a p in the a that I need to load them every time I need to use them.

I have now made a materials template drawing, in which I have loaded them all, but is it possible to load them via a macro?

Otherwise I should like to propose that you'd be able to load them via workspace.

I can absolutely recommend these materials, which came with a symbol package I got from NWG.

Below is an example of their Terracotta material.

[Dr PR]

magic,

Agreed. I have set the Materials file location in "Options/File Locations" and my mat file is there, but the program does not find it.

I did what you did, and created a materials drawing. I have to open it, select the objects and copy/paste them into my drawings to make my materials available.

Sounds like a bug to me.

V20.0.

[Dempsey]

Magic, Dr PR

I always drool over your beautiful images. At least now I know magic's secret. I checked New World Graphics, but the DesignCAD library is $599.00  so I decided to pass on that.

My gut feeling says that it makes sense to only load the materials you really need in a drawing. Each additional material adds some 150 to 400 bytes to the drawing. With NWG's library off 3,000+ that is about 1 MB.

[magic]

Hi Dr PR and Dempsey,
 
I'd never load 3000+ materials. Actually I don't think I've got more than 30. And there is a lot of those that I'd never use anyway.

What I'm suggesting, is a workspace, in which you could name the materials, you want to load, so they were loaded, when you need them.

Dempsey, thanks for the nice words, but are you sure that it's not your banana you're drooling over?

[Dr PR]

Dempsey,

If you don't need special materials don't mess with them! It will really hurt your brain trying to get what you want. I have tried many times to get a really shiny reflective chrome material. The default "chrome" material looks like gray mud.

The problem is that DesignCAD's lighting scheme is totally screwed up. The shininess of a material is controlled by the light source! So, not only do you have to find the correct materials settings, but you have to find the correct lighting settings. So, when you change the lighting settings you change the properties of all materials in the drawing. When you get it right for one material you screw it up for another! Arggghhhhh!

Furthermore, the  "Enable color material" selection in the "Shading Options" dialog changes how the lighting settings effect the materials display properties.

And the results change between Gouraud and Phong shading! Phong is the most realistic.

A "shiny" light will make dull concrete look like polished glass! Changing light properties will make a shiny material look dull!

I cannot imagine anything more screwed up!

****

To work correctly light should have no properties except color and brightness (wavelength and magnitude, simple physics). Lights can be directional, point, etc, but where they are located, color and brightness shouldn't change the properties of materials!

All material properties should be controlled ONLY by the materials dialog setting. In the real world it is the arrangement of molecules in materials that determines surface reflectivity and transparency, not the light source. The visible light source has no effect (unless it is intensely bright, enough to melt or vaporize the material).

[Dempsey]

I don't think that it is possible to load materials via a macro.

Loading materials via workspace could be an option, but that means the materials are included in each drawing. Might not like by everyone.

The third possibility, and in my opinion the most elegant, is to use Options/Options/Material. The current Retrieve function looks already in your personal Material folder and you can load one material at a time. All that is needed is to extend the Retrieve function and allow the selection of multiple material files and upon clicking Open they are loaded one after the other. If needed they can add a "Retrieve Multiple" button too.

[magic]

Hi Dempsey,

You're right, you can't load materials with a macro.

So what I'm looking for, is a way to start a new drawing without having to load 5 - 10 Custom Materials individually every time.

Workspace seems ideal for that, because you could have a workspace setting for drawing buildings, one for plastics, one for metal, one for wood (though I tend to use Texture Mapping for that), and one for historical stuff.

By the way the workspace flags ought to be off as default, because you may want to load one for start up and another for colors, see illustration below.

[Rob S]

Nothing against your idea of workspace, if they decide to work on it.

How about if this became part of "save settings with drawing" - I'd rather have that implementation myself.

That way you could save blank template drawings for different kinds of projects?

[Dempsey]

I put magic's request on the Feature Request List.

Personally I like to have the multiple material files loading implemented under Options/Options/Material. That would fit perfect with Rob and my preference.

Since I found out that Workspace is a mess I have used a template drawing to start new drawings.

[magic]

Hi Rob and Dempsey,

Rob, custom materials are already saved with drawing as it is. That's why we can make template drawings with custom materials in them.

Dempsey, thanks for putting it on the Features list. I have seen that "Workspace is a mess" before, but I think that one of the reasons, people think it's a mess, is that when you save a workspace, you save all the settings that you have made, because they are all set as default, and if you have special setting in another, you loose that.

Example: You want to change your color setting, and you have a workspace for that, but when you load it, your custom toolboxes change as well, because they are all set as default, and you don't think about it. Am I making myself too muddled here?

So if they weren't set as default, you wouldn't have that problem.

[Rob S]

I haven't used custom materials much - so I didn't know that.  So if you suddenly need a batch of your custom materials in a drawing, have you tried pasting one into the other???

The worst problem with workspace is, I find I don't know what I am saving.

To save only certain settings, I must first unclick (two clicks per line) all the settings I don't want, then I must re-edit the settings for what I do want, because what it saves is totally different from my current drawing settings, and then I'm still not sure what it actually saved.

Then, If I want to edit one little setting in that saved workspace, I must go through that entire process again.  I don't know how anyone has the patience to create a final set of settings they might want.

It would be so easy if I could just go "save current settings as workspace" select the ones I do want, and go, and if the result was a readable ini file, where I can see what's in it, and edit as need be!!!

[magic]

Hi Rob,

The worst problem with workspace is, I find I don't know what I am saving.

To save only certain settings, I must first unclick (two clicks per line) all the settings I don't want, then I must re-edit the settings for what I do want, because what it saves is totally different from my current drawing settings, and then I'm still not sure what it actually saved.

Then, If I want to edit one little setting in that saved workspace, I must go through that entire process again.  I don't know how anyone has the patience to create a final set of settings they might want.

Hence my suggestion to have them all not set as default.

It would be so easy if I could just go "save current settings as workspace" select the ones I do want, and go, and if the result was a readable ini file, where I can see what's in it, and edit as need be!!!

Now that's a good suggestion too, except not an .ini file, that would leave you with just one workspace, but a readable file, I agree.

[Rob S]

No, No, No, a named ini file (the name you used to save those settings with, in a separate workspace settings folder)) to be loaded upon request, (Workspace, load settings,browse) and which would overwrite only those settings it contains.

Also requested here http://forum.designcadcommunity.com/index.php?topic=2772.0

Further described here  http://forum.designcadcommunity.com/index.php?topic=2771.0

[Dr PR]

Dempsey,

Thanks again! For some reason I assumed that custom materials would be loaded automatically like custom keyboards. That's why the program never "found" my custom materials - it doesn't try.

I have been opening a "materials" drawing with lots of cubes with assigned custom materials, then copying and pasting material cubes into new drawings to get what I need. This is cumbersome, and just won't work with a very large number of custom materials (lets see, which yellow cube is shiny brass and which is polished gold ...?). And I need to put this extra garbage on a hidden layer.

One possibility is to define a custom (other than the program's default) material collection file to load at start up. If you don't have many custom materials and can put them all into a single file this should work OK.

Note: The current mat files save only one material each. A materials collection file is needed to save all materials in the current drawing.

For those who want to select between different groups of materials the "Options/Material/Retrieve" function opens the materials folder and lists all mat files. If we had custom materials collection files we could retrieve just the one(s) you want.

Another possibility is to allow a materials collection file to be opened to list all materials in the collection, and allow us to select individual materials (one or more) from the list to add to the materials options in the current file. This is similar to retrieving individual materials files in the current version, but the list could show colors and properties in addition to the material names.