Delete unused materials in a scene

[Starship]

I searched, but not found a way to delete the unused maps in a scene. Note that I´m not talking about the slots material, it´s easy.
I´m talking about the unused materials that appears in Map/browser when you check "scene".
Thanks for help!

[psycho]

never had this problem (or never realized it), but maybe try merging the model into a new scene... it should only merge the used materials then...

[spudmonkey]

You can do it from one of the options in the material browser but I can't remember what it's called and don't have Max at work... I think if you go to the material library option where you can open other mtl files you are able to remove materials from the current scene, but it might be another option

/not my most useful moment!

[DaAan]

in the material editor window go to the utilities menu and go down to condense material editor slots, it will then remove the materials not applied to an object in the scene

[edit] there is also one to do multimaterials too that ones called clean multimaterial [/edit]

[Nutsy]

I dont think you can fully delete all unused maps and meterials in max... I think it might be a bug.

I have had a simuler problem. I removed all references i could find of a meterial bake i did.

But it still comes up as a missing texture when i send it to the render farm. So i have to enclude a dummy texture alone with the texture pack. Its a right pain in the arse as it doesnt copy with the asset exporter.

[iOSYS]

How much of an effect does a series of unused map have on ones system? Will it significantly gum things up? I get the feeling it does not, unless you have... a LOT of them. Am I right?

[Starship]

Originally Posted by iOSYS

How much of an effect does a series of unused map have on ones system? Will it significantly gum things up? I get the feeling it does not, unless you have... a LOT of them. Am I right?

First: Thanks for all of you in repplying.

iosys I´m not sure about the effect on the system, but your explanation sounds logical.
For me, anyway, all those unused maps left behind with a mesh, sounds like a "dirty" work. I would like to clean the scene before to release my meshes.
I know that another chapter is needed too: to clean the mesh itself... But it´s another history (skill and pratice).

[Nutsy]

I cant say for sure as i don’t know how the system works... But i guess next to little... In the case of missing textures in render farms and network renders its more of an annoyance... As you have to make the dummy texture. The dummy would only be a few kb as its really just a .tga .png .bmp with a few black pixels.

But if you mean an image sequence... just load the sequence file... Max doesn’t check beyond that so it wont run the image files if there not there.

Its just an annoying bug that max doesn’t always totally disassociate texture maps that are no longer in use. IE like texture bakes that have been removed from the models materials...

[Ndege]

I don't think you can truly remove a material from an object using the interface (by truly I mean that you can remove the maps, but the material will still be on the object if you check with the material dropper).

Luckily, you can do it using MaxScript. Select the object(s) you want materials removed from, open the MaxScript listener, then type

$.materials = NULL

Hit enter. All materials will be scrubbed (bitmaps and all) and the selected objects will revert to their wireframe color.

edit: Just noticed there's a "How To... Remove All Materials" script you can put in the interface (toolbar, menu, quad, whatever) in the MaxScript help files that clears materials on all objects in the scene.

[Starship]

Thanks Ndege, but i don't want to clear the mesh materials, just the materials not used, but floating around in Map/browser.