HOW TO IMPORT MATERIALS???

[Anonymous]

I have a large file of materials that I want to add to ArchiCAD. How do I go about doing this? The Help menu offers no advice on importing materials. Here's what I've tried so far...

I've gone through the library manager and selected the folder that the textures are in, and I cannot seem to find them if I open the model materials box (see attachment).

I've gone through the attribute manager to the materials attribute manager box and tried to select the folder and import the materials, but that does not work.

I've also gone into the material settings dialog box and tried to select the folder there, but it seems to only want to select a single file, and I don't want to spend all day importing the materials one by one.

Please help with how to proceed... I know there's probably an easy quick way to do this.

[Anonymous]

Penelope,

Maybe this topic has something to do with it. It may be the rendering engine you are using.

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=30715&highlight=

[ares997]

Just to clarify you can not bring a material in with it's texture already pre assigned. Is that correct? So if I have a wall in another file that has a texture that I would like to use I need to reassign that texture to the material?

Really? I can't create an attributes file with the the texture and materials that I want and then import it into another file?

Is there some other work around?

[Karl Ottenstein]

ares997 wrote:
Really? I can't create an attributes file with the the texture and materials that I want and then import it into another file?

Works fine for me.

[Dwight]

If you aren't too picky about material ID numbers, you can do a simple cut and past between two open files to import a new material.

[Barry Kelly]

So long as the texture file (i.e. JPG file) is in the loaded library of the job that you are pasting to or transfering the material attribute to then all will be fine.
If you do not have the texture file in the loaded libraru you will get an "Missing" texture in your library loading report.
Barry.

[Dwight]

I'm a sloppy library manager. Just keep the same one and it gets bigger and bigger. That way, I never need worry about things loaded or not.

BTW: Dwight's Library Image Management Trick #39

I developed this trick in doing my first book, making many texture images to try material strategies and I had a gigantic library - reloading after every addition was just too slow.

To speed things up: Build a library folder with several dummy image files in it. Number them sequentially - or whatever. Once their addresses are loaded in the library, their content can be swapped without reloading. Just save the new image to an existing numbered file already loaded in the library. Archicad can't tell the difference. Nyuk nyuk. There's no undo so be careful.

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
BTW: Dwight's Library Image Management Trick #39

I developed this trick in doing my first book, making many texture images to try material strategies and I had a gigantic library - reloading after every addition was just too slow.

To speed things up: Build a library folder with several dummy image files in it. Number them sequentially - or whatever. Once their addresses are loaded in the library, their content can be swapped without reloading. Just save the new image to an existing numbered file already loaded in the library. Archicad can't tell the difference. Nyuk nyuk. There's no undo so be careful.

An extra step to manage (but a great strategy to reduce project libraries)... Clever! And the undo issue might not be a big deal if you have incremental backups! Was this trick published on the LW book or your Artlantis one? Thanks for sharing.

[Dwight]

This trick merely bypasses the cyber-drudgery of reloading libraries when adding occasional textures.

While I might have outlined the trick in prior posts, it isn't in any of my books. You certainly don't need this trick in Artlantis since textures are managed differently - so loose and all continental-like.

Those French! They have a different dialog for everything!