Materials changing by themselves?

[jeremyw01]

Hi,

 

I am having trouble applying materials/textures. On occasion when I select an object then apply a new material, another object in the scene is also changed to the material I just assigned even though it has its own material assigned.

 

Basically materials are being changing automatically.

 

It happens with a UV map and without on an object.

 

The materials I am adding are Jpeg's, Bitmaps etc.

 

How can I stop this, or is there something I am doing wrong?

 

Any help would be appreciated, cheers

[Cad64]

I can't think of any reason why that would be happening. From your post it sounds like this is a random occurrence, is that correct? If so, maybe it's a software problem. Are you up to date with the latest service pack for your version of Studio Max?

 

As to whether you're doing something wrong or not, I would need more information about what you're doing and how you're doing it.

[jeremyw01]

Hi Cad64,

 

It is happening quite a bit to be fair. I am a relatively new user, so thought it might just be operator error.

 

It seems as if when I select an object, others are selected (in the background) even though only the object I want is selected which is confirmed by the object name being shown on the right up near the modifiers box.

 

I select an object using the object select icon. Other than this I am not sure why it is picking up other objects.

 

I might look at using select object by list and see if this changes anything.

 

Cheers

[Cad64]

It sounds like all of your objects are attached, which would explain why the materials are changing.

 

Here are two things you can do in regards to this issue.

1. If you don't mind separating the objects you can just "Detach" the object you want to work on.

2. If you want to keep all the objects attached together, you can use a multi sub object material, in conjunction with material ID's, to assign materials to specific objects.

 

Here's a video showing how to attach and detach objects:

 

Here's a video showing how to use the multi sub object material with material ID's:

[jeremyw01]

Thanks for the info CAD64, I will try have a look at the vids and adopt these new techniques.

 

I appreciate your time,

 

Cheers

[spittle]

Do your materials have unique names?

[jeremyw01]

Hi spittle, the materials don't have any names in particular that are special. I do think that the naming of layers was the culprit.

 

I was a little more careful on object selection and renaming layers when prompted. Is working fine now.

 

Cheers

[spittle]

Layers don't matter but unique material names do - you should get a prompt though when you try to add a material to your scene wih a duplicate name.

 

Also if you have two instances of an object in your scene and you add a material to one it will update the other.

 

If you have two instances of the same material in your editor obviously one will update the other - has caught me out plenty of times.

[jeremyw01]

What you just said is what was happening! under control now, finally lol

 

Thanks