Messy Plan Materials list

[puntloos]

My current plan materials list is quite annoying, many 'random materials' and what's worse - duplicates. Makes the list pretty useless for quickly selecting appropriate colors. How can I collapse the material list so that my house only uses a few basic materials. 

For example I want all visible wood to be "Birch Natural", and most external accent colors to be "Color - Slate" 

 

halp?

[GeneDavis]

Sounds like you have some specifying to do.  Whatever you put in your plan at whatever spec, it what the program counts.

[puntloos]

1 minute ago, GeneDavis said:

Sounds like you have some specifying to do.  Whatever you put in your plan at whatever spec, it what the program counts.

 

Let me show you what I mean: when i want to edit the default material of a door, I go to defaults, doors.. and then the "plan materials" in the material selector lists "birch - natural" 4x and a bunch of random things. 

 

I'd like a single birch-natural.

 

 

[Alaskan_Son]

Group select them and then click Merge

[Dermot]

Have you tried merging them?

 

The other issue is what are you doing that is creating all of these duplicates to begin with?

 

It would probably help if you posted a copy of the plan.  If all else fails, you might want to contact our tech support team.

[puntloos]

Ah, merge, I didn't notice that option.

.. and it failed.

 

I tried to merge 3x 'glass' (exact same name) and I got an error that merge was not fully completed (and suddenly my doors were with a strange black texture)

 

@Dermot- sorry no idea! I only recently noticed the plan materials choice in material selector, but it has so many random things in there its main purpose that I imagine (quickly selecting from my default house palette) really doesn't work if I have to scroll through all kind of things.

 

The merging might (...) fix the duplicates, but the dialog is still crowded with items that probably came with the library items (e.g. I'm pretty sure I didn't choose 'Green Exposed Fasteners' for any of my surfaces, but instead it is probably the awnings I chose..)

 

 

[Dermot]

Sounds like it might be a bug to me.  Of course, there is nothing anyone can do about it unless you post the plan or contact tech support.

[Kbird1]

6 hours ago, puntloos said:

Ah, merge, I didn't notice that option.

.. and it failed.

 

I tried to merge 3x 'glass' (exact same name) and I got an error that merge was not fully completed (and suddenly my doors were with a strange black texture)

 

@Dermot- sorry no idea! I only recently noticed the plan materials choice in material selector, but it has so many random things in there its main purpose that I imagine (quickly selecting from my default house palette) really doesn't work if I have to scroll through all kind of things.

 

The merging might (...) fix the duplicates, but the dialog is still crowded with items that probably came with the library items (e.g. I'm pretty sure I didn't choose 'Green Exposed Fasteners' for any of my surfaces, but instead it is probably the awnings I chose..)

 

 

 

The multiple copies of materials ( made by ????) and the Error when Merging has been around for a couple of versions now, so definitely send it in please.....

 

Plans come with 35-40 Default Materials OOB ( Look at Defaults > Materials )

 

Green Exposed Fasteners is a Metal Roofing Material (Texture) I believe.

 

M.

[puntloos]

I'm a bit shy about my full plan out in the open (I've included architect drawings, map overlays location specs etc) plus it's horrible amateur hour (for example to generate a crown roof I inserted a fake floor between 1st and loft :P) -  I've only played with chief as a way to 'understand' the work my Architect has done but I'll send it to support. 

 

(support case ticket: 109276 for @Dermot )

[rgardner]

If the material doesn't have a check mark next to it then you can purge the unused ones out of the list as well.

[puntloos]

To be clear though, a list of 'used materials' has, well, its uses, but if you want to color-coordinate your house, what you would want is a "palette" - for example in my house I want birch, slate, and cream, so any 'colors' I can detect in the design that don't match these should be merged (and replaced with) the actual defaults.

 

@Kbird1 mentioned the roofing texture but indeed I don't think I care about 'textures on objects' that i draw from the library. There are some exceptions I suppose, but I'm primarily worried about the recurring larger areas.