Is it possible to build the VSS "shader rules" and "apply rules" psuedo-materials in Matmatic?  If so, how would one go about it?  I'm working with a very old model that has about 70 shockingly unique material names, and gosh it'd be easier if I could code those instead than build them by hand.

It would be possible, but tedious. Much better is to use VSS!

Look in the vss folder. There is a script called "vssGenericFigureShaderRules.py". Make a copy of that.

Then edit it to create the rules you want.

The rules are in the "setup" list, which is a list of lists of lists.

But it's really simple.

Let's take one of the items apart:

[t+'Cornea', ['cornea', 'eyetrans', 'eyesurface', 'tear']],

t is already set to "Template " above, so that means we're defining which materials get Template Cornea.

Then the innermost list defines the rules to match for that template. In this case, there will be

Rule cornea
Rule eyetrans
Rule eyesurface
Rule tear

All of which will be connected to Copy Template Cornea.

Once you have the script as you like it, go into the material room, pick a prop to use as a control prop, and run the script. The Shader Rules material will be created if it doesn't exist, and then the rules will be set up.

I don't have one for the Apply Rules, but if you're handy with Python, you should be able to make a similar one. Instead of ShaderRulesName, you use ApplyRulesName.

And instead of a double loop, you just need a single loop over the rules. A simple list of rule strings will suffice.

Great!  As you no doubt guessed,  I didn't realize that was in there.  That'll work spiffy.  I'll see what I can set up for the Apply Rules, but even if I can't get it, that's not nearly as many as the shader rules.

Thanks!