[REQ] Rhino Material Browser support for XML mat files

[bmscmoreira]

Self explanatory - I think its not possible, but is there a chance the integrated material browser in Rhino can support XML material files and not just thea.mat files? Thanks!

[christos]

Hi,

You mean Thea XML mat files right ? They certainly can be added to the material browser...

However the downside is that to get a preview in the files list, the xml materials would have to be rendered and I don't think that's a good option. Imagine if you have 100 materials in a directory... It would take a long time just to see the preview, thus breaking the whole point of the material browser which is to quickly identify, choose a material and add it to the scene.

The .mat.thea materials don't have this issue.

[bmscmoreira]

Thanks for the quick reply! I wouldn't mind having a plain text list to choose materials from. But (maybe I'm doing something wrong) I can't seem to be able to see the xml materials inside Rhino (i.e. I've placed a xml mat file in a custom folder, browsed to it using the integrated Thea material browser inside Rhino, but I don't see any material).
Thanks again!

[christos]

You're right. At the moment you can see only mat.thea files.

I meant I could extend the browser to also see xml materials. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[bmscmoreira]

Oh ok! Thanks. If it's not too time consuming (there are priorities I'm sure) it would be great.
Only reason I'm considering XML files is to edit them directly on a text editor to edit the texture paths in a more fast way than going through Thea.

[christos]

I see.

Well as I said the only reason I'm reluctant to add them is the preview. I made the extension earlier and it looked really ugly. XML materials got in between mat.thea and it was chaos
I really don't want to go to the route of "onDemandPreview" because this will slow down the browser by orders of magnitude.

Maybe if there was another category only for xml materials ? Or sorted at the end perhaps ? I can certainly see the need for it, so I'll what can be done.

[nigec]

You could do a bat file to convert it back to mat.thea

off the top of my head, put the bat file in the folder were the xml is.. and the saved mat needs the full path

Code: Select all

cd C:\Program Files\Thea Render
thea -matlab -loadmat  "mymat.xml" -savemat "C:\Temp\mymat.mat.thea" -exit

[bmscmoreira]

Thanks! The batch sounds interesting. Maybe something can be worked out with the xml as well

[bmscmoreira]

The batch works great! I can convert any number of xml files with just one click on the bat file! Thanks! A few notes: both paths need to be full paths, and the bat must be executed as admin.

[Rombout]

I dont remember any windows coding, but isnt possible to add a short variable so you dont need to type the full path each time?

so for example;

Code: Select all

path = "c:/uers/data/thea/materials/metals/
cd C:\Program Files\Thea Render
thea -matlab -loadmat  "mymat.xml" -savemat 'path' -exit