topic Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials in Libraries & objects

GDL objects with adjustable materials

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 05:38:04 GMT

How do I create a GDL object where I can adjust the materials individually? The only way I know how to do it doesn't save the individual materials, and the only way to change material is to un-tic the "Use Object's Materials" box and choose a different material, but this changes the entire object.

Your help welcomed! Thanks!

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

MMontgomery — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:23:12 GMT

In a nutshell, you define different materials while modeling, then change those definitions to a variable parameter in the GDL script.

*******

When you create your object, define a different material for each part of the object that you would like to be able to adjust individually.

For example, a chair with different materials for the legs, seat, and back. Assign Paint-01 to legs, Paint-02 to seat, and Paint-03 to back.

Save object as editable GDL object.

Place the object in your plan, select it, the open object using CTRL+SHIFT+O

Create a new material parameter for each item, in this case 3 of them. For this example, use the variables 'leg_mat', 'seat_mat' and 'back_mat' and choose a default material for each.

Then open the 3D script, use the 'search and replace text' command to replace "Paint-01" (include quotes since it is not a variable) with leg_mat (no quotes around variables), "Paint-02" with seat_mat and "Paint-03" with back_mat.

Hope that helps ~

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:59:53 GMT

I have written an article about this subject for ArchiMAG. You can download the entire article from my website for free.

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

vfrontiers — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:24:25 GMT

That's how it's done... Just been doing a lot of this lately...

So... Let's make this a WISH...

We know that GS "blessed" us by using a SPECIAL command that turned any slab with an ID "WALLHOLE" into a WALLHOLE command for windows and doors...

Here, I am proposing something much the same...

1. GS to create some special character like asterisk at the beginning AND the end of a material name

*LegMat*

2. Users then create a Material Named *LegMat* in their materials library.

3. When used as the material for an element in a SAVE AS LIBRARY PART...AC would create that PARAMETER and assign it as a parameter to the objects gdl..

Sounds so simple when I write out...

GS?

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:22:22 GMT

Hi Duane,
Can you make this wish into a separate Wish post where we can vote for it?
I am anxious to click the ESSENTIAL button.
Great idea. Might be extended to other attribute types.
Or, the element could be dimensioned before being saved as GDL and all dimensions would be converted into parameters. The Dimension Text would be changed to the intended GDL parameter name prior to saving.

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

vfrontiers — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:22:13 GMT

Done!

---now go vote!

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=37083

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:28:11 GMT

Done.

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

vfrontiers — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:28:26 GMT

And... you might as well vote here too....

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=192471#192471

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 06:56:44 GMT

Success! Thank you all for your help!

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:01:07 GMT

Can anybody tell me how i define materials in the master script???

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:51:27 GMT

Check the GDL Reference Guide:
You have to have a file called MASTER_GDLxxxxxxxxx.gdl
In the place of xxxxxxxxx you can put any characters so the name of the file will be e.g. MASTER_GDL-OfficeMaterials.gdl

This file must be loaded in the loaded libraries.
You can edit this file in Notepad, it is a text file, with the GDL extension.

In this file you can use any of the DEFINE commands of GDL to define fills, materials, line types, textures etc.
These DEFINE commands are covered in the GDL Manual PDF on pages 196-212

Their result is when you reload libraries and a library contains a MASTER_GDL... file, the content of the file is executed, and if there are those DEFINE commands, the attributes defined in the MASTER_GDL file will be added to the attribute set of the project.

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:30:23 GMT

Thank you very mutch laszlonagy and all the other people who replayed.
I am very new to GDL so this is very helpful. If its possible, can you post a example? It is a little bit easy for me to understand now in the beggining.
Thank you very mutch.

Re: GDL objects with adjustable materials

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:44:20 GMT

The examples are there in the GDL Reference Guide PDF.

I copied one example:


DEFINE MATERIAL "water" 0,
0.5284, 0.5989, 0.6167,
! surface RGB [0.0..1.0]
1.0, 0.5, 0.5, 0.9,
! ambient, diffuse, specular,transparent
! coefficients [0.0..1.0]
2.0,
! shining [0.0..100.0]
1,
! transparency attenuation [0.0..4.0]
0.5284, 0.5989, 0.6167,
! specular RGB [0.0..1.0]
0, 0, 0,
! emission RGB [0.0..1.0]
0.0
! emission attenuation [0.0..65.5]

Note that the lines starting with ! are comments.

So the real script is:

DEFINE MATERIAL "water" 0,
0.5284, 0.5989, 0.6167,
1.0, 0.5, 0.5, 0.9,
2.0,
1,
0.5284, 0.5989, 0.6167,
0, 0, 0,
0.0

So if you paste this into Notepad, save it as MASTER_GDL-1.gdl for example, then place this file into any of your loaded libraries, reload the libraries, the new material will be there among your materials.