I have a large prop consisting of several groups and materials.

Aside from editing the PZ3 or PP2 file - how can I easily delete unused materials so they do not show up in the Material room after selecting a prop?

Is there no way to do this from the GUI inside POSER? Is there a neato script that I can run against a prop that wuold delete all selected materials and assignments?

I don't see how to do this in the group editor. Thanks for your help.

You could always hand-edit the prop file with Notepad or something similar and cull the materials that way :o).

Laurie

Thanks but ....I know about that and boy is it tedious or what?  Plus I don't want to goof it up.  Wish there were some easier way via interface or script.

You can delete them right in the material room. If they are unused textures just floating around taking up space, replaced by other textures perhaps, all the orphaned textures can be removed at once by using the the shortcut button on the right-hand side in the Mat. Room. It's called Remove Extra Textures, or something like that. It cleans out all textures not connected to nodes (not being used in the prop or figure, in layman's terms).

Have a look at VSS by Bagginsbill.

Quote - You can delete them right in the material room. If they are unused textures just floating around taking up space, replaced by other textures perhaps, all the orphaned textures can be removed at once by using the the shortcut button on the right-hand side in the Mat. Room. It's called Remove Extra Textures, or something like that. It cleans out all textures not connected to nodes (not being used in the prop or figure, in layman's terms).

The "Remove Detached Nodes" script will not get rid of unneeded material zones which I think is what the OP is talking about. That script will only delete nodes that aren't attached to anything but will not touch any individual material zones.
Laurie

Material groups are specified in the obj file by the usemtl lines.  If you have garbage from an earlier obj thats not in the current version I think saving the prop will clean them up.  You can reassign materials in the group editor but I find it easier in the modelling program.

Attached Link: NoteTab

tmaterial[x00-x7F]*?t}rn

Leave Replace blank.

t is the tab character and should work but you can also use s which is any whitespace character, if the file is using spaces instead of tabs.

Each time you hit Find Next, it should highlight an entire material block from material cloth (for example) to the closing bracket }. Click replace to delete it, or Find Next to skip it. Make a backup first and use at your own risk. It works for me using NoteTab 5.5 but your results may vary. The syntax may be different with other editors as well. Using regular expressions you can easily find and replace chunks of Poser code - once you figure out the expression to use - which can be a pain for me at least :-)

You might also look at one of the .cr2 editors, there should be something out there that has this function.
 

Quote - [The "Remove Detached Nodes" script will not get rid of unneeded material zones which I think is what the OP is talking about.

Yes, I know it doesn't delete material zones. It deletes unused materials, which is what the OP said he or she wanted to do. Unless I misunderstood and he or she meant zones.

If the idea is to consolidate a bunch of material zones because many of them have identical texture/shader content, that's easy enough to do with the Grouping Tool. Be warned, though, if you pick new names for your zones instead of using existing names, the textures will be gone and you'll have to re-apply them in the Material Room.

At this point now, I'm really not sure if the OP meant material nodes or zones...lol.

Laurie

LaurieA - You had it right the first time.  I want to get rid of material zones.  I know how to edit the OBJ or PZ3 or what have you to do this. But it is tedious.

I would prefer a tool/interface that would allow me to select a PROP and show all mats zones assinged and the delete them one by one or in a group.

What would really be cool is if you coule right-click on the Material in the pull down in the Mat room and click "DE:ETE" !!  But...you can't.

Thanks for all the feedback I think Phil C has a script for doing this but I was looking for something free...

Is it true that if you have a Prop and you have materials zones that are unassigned then when you EXPORT to OBJ - they will be deleted??  Seems like I've tried this but they keep showing up in the pulldown menu.

By the way - I'm a"he" .

You can get rid of them in Wings, which IS free. But that'll only work well for you if you're familiar with modeling programs. IMVHO, it's much easier to get rid of those mat zones you don't need in the modeling program. UVMapper Pro can get rid of them too. Not sure if the free version can or not tho.

Laurie

I might give WINGS a try.  Thank you!!

Back up your original just in case ;o). I'm not saying that because I think anyone's stupid - I say that because I've forgotten to do it more flippin' times than I'd like to count...lolol.

Laurie

 Get UVMapper - it does exactly that. Just assign a new material and it will override the old material zones - like if you have console with a specified material for the top, selecting the whole thing and make a material called Console - the TOP material is now gone :)

I have the FREE UVMapper - does it work with that?

Quote - You can get rid of them in Wings, which IS free. But that'll only work well for you if you're familiar with modeling programs. IMVHO, it's much easier to get rid of those mat zones you don't need in the modeling program. UVMapper Pro can get rid of them too. Not sure if the free version can or not tho.

Laurie

I remember having to get not only into the .cr2 but also (more effectively) the .obj and .mtl files and removing references to material zones. Also tedious, although NotePad++ makes it a lot less painful.

In Blender3D, the in-built material zone thingie allows you to assign vertices/polygons to different groups than originally set up. And you can unassign polygons from material groups, then, when nothing is associated with that material group, it pretty much disappears. Managing group membership on a polygon level is the better way, since that way a vertex can be part of two zones, if it's part of an edge of a group.

Problem is: in order to achieve this in Blender you kind-of have to get your head around Blender, which - fair enough - many find a show-stopper. :biggrin:

Quote - > Quote - You can get rid of them in Wings, which IS free. But that'll only work well for you if you're familiar with modeling programs. IMVHO, it's much easier to get rid of those mat zones you don't need in the modeling program. UVMapper Pro can get rid of them too. Not sure if the free version can or not tho.

Laurie

I remember having to get not only into the .cr2 but also (more effectively) the .obj and .mtl files and removing references to material zones. Also tedious, although NotePad++ makes it a lot less painful.

In Blender3D, the in-built material zone thingie allows you to assign vertices/polygons to different groups than originally set up. And you can unassign polygons from material groups, then, when nothing is associated with that material group, it pretty much disappears. Managing group membership on a polygon level is the better way, since that way a vertex can be part of two zones, if it's part of an edge of a group.

Problem is: in order to achieve this in Blender you kind-of have to get your head around Blender, which - fair enough - many find a show-stopper. :biggrin:

Notepad++ is what I normally use to do that kinda thing, but I suggested it and the OP didn't wanna go that route so....

;o)

Laurie

Well, your suggestion to use Wings includes a much flatter learning curve: might want to go with that, as opposed to using Blender. I'm actually going to be having another look at Wings - always good to use more than one app to accomplish similar tasks, since sometimes it's just quicker and easier in one over the other. EVERY app has it's merits.

And sheesh, you DO create such lovely clothing in it, Laurie.

Wings is good...easy to learn. And it only does one thing - model. I like that. Keeps me from getting lost...lol (since I do that so easily).

Laurie

Okay everyone - what do you mean by OP - Offending Person??  LOL

Gee I'm going to have a complex.....thanks for all of your ideas and help - no magic bullet so far and I'm gettin' the idea here....

original poster....lmao.

Laurie

I've never had any problems with the material zones reappearing after exporting and reimporting UNLESS those material zones still have polygons assigned to them somewhere hidden from view.

I have a script that will show the materials in an obj file , and change the allocation to another group. Its a python script so I just need to get it running under Poser instead of directly from Python.

If you edit a new obj into an old cr2 or pp2 file you need to manually remove the surplus materials.

sorry , brain just engaged :) 

You can open the obj in a text editor like wordpad , and just use the replace function to find and replace one usemtl statement for another .