Importing Materials in Bulk

[stager386]

Does anyone know if there is a way to import a large number of materials all at once? I have almost 100 fabric images I want to import, in jpg format, and can't seem to do more than one at a time.  Thanks!

[DavidJPotter]

Not that I am aware of. What you should do is to place the image files in the C:/My Documents/Chief Architect Premier X10 data/Textures. Then you use the Library Browser to, one at a time create a "New Material" for each texture file, naming it and importing it into the Library Browser. That is the only method I know of.

 

DJP

[glennw]

Place all your images into a single folder and sub folders if you like.

3D...Materials...Convert Textures To Materials.

Select a folder and Chief will convert all the textures in that folder ( and sub folders) to your library in one go.

It will also create the materials with the same folder heirachy as the original textures.

[stager386]

21 hours ago, DavidJPotter said:

Not that I am aware of. What you should do is to place the image files in the C:/My Documents/Chief Architect Premier X10 data/Textures. Then you use the Library Browser to, one at a time create a "New Material" for each texture file, naming it and importing it into the Library Browser. That is the only method I know of.

 

DJP

That's exactly what I did, thank you. I was just hoping I could somehow do it in bulk.

[stager386]

21 hours ago, glennw said:

Place all your images into a single folder and sub folders if you like.

3D...Materials...Convert Textures To Materials.

Select a folder and Chief will convert all the textures in that folder ( and sub folders) to your library in one go.

It will also create the materials with the same folder heirachy as the original textures.

Oh wow, thank you! It worked!

[stager386]

I am trying to take these materials, and add them onto a portion of an object.  For example, I want to decorate the rim of a plate with a design but leave the rest of the plate plain.  I have tried playing around with polylines and material regions and custom backsplashes, but none are really doing the right thing.  Any thoughts on that? Thank you.

[Chopsaw]

That is a rather delicate thing to do in Chief but the theory would be to have separate materials on the symbol such that they could be edited afterwards. You could carefully add a thin layer to an existing symbol or start from scratch and model your own components.

[stager386]

17 minutes ago, Chopsaw said:

That is a rather delicate thing to do in Chief but the theory would be to have separate materials on the symbol such that they could be edited afterwards. You could carefully add a thin layer to an existing symbol or start from scratch and model your own components.

This is what I have been trying to do, adding a thin layer around the plate. but I can't edit the polyline , the part I want to make into a "donut" to sit on the rim, to become a circle. And the solid shaped poly cylinder can't have a hole cut out of it to become the donut.

[Chopsaw]

Likely the easiest way to do that would be to place the plate centered at 0,0, and cut a section through the middle then draw a very thin face and revolve it 360° around the Z-Axis. Then recreate it as a new symbol.

[stager386]

How do I cut a section out of it? I tried doing it with the polyline but it made no sense to me.

[Chopsaw]

Sorry that may not have been as clear as it should have been. Use an elevation camera and set the cutting plane at the center of the plate.  I will try to find time to make you a video.

[Chopsaw]

Hopefully this will help:

 

 

[stager386]

On 9/16/2018 at 9:19 PM, Chopsaw said:

Hopefully this will help:

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to do this!  I ended up creating the extra surface on the plate by making a polyline solid and converting to a spline. It then became the round shape I needed.  Then created a copy of the new round polyline, sized it smaller, and created a hole in this copy. This copy, is now completely a hole. I placed it on top of the larger round polyline and then both on top of the plate.  3 components.  Not very efficient but it worked, and I will now try your method.  Thank you so much!