Material ID modifier - for Baking
Hi, we're using blender a lot for webVR and web 3D in general. Compared to other solutions, blender materials and editor are great for previewing stuff but blender baking is lacking major utility features. To support baking, but also for quick material assignment, I suggest adding a modifier that will swap out all material IDs for another material ID. It can also be extended to work based on an array (input and output).
Right now if I have a mesh with 4 materials and I want to preview it with 1 material, or with 4 completely different ones, the only solution is to duplicate that geometry and replace those materials. Or I can be completely distructive and replace the materials of the original mesh with no way of quickly going back.
Having multiple identical meshes is not ideal for many reasons especially when working with parented assets and collections for the purpose of exporting assets.
Having such a modifier can be very helpful when creating clay renders as well.
Thanks
4 Comments
I think this is already possible with geometry nodes because the material_index got exposed as a editable attribute.
* @Simon Sommer * That might fall in way with the everything nodes initiative. So when that is fully available maybe that's the ideal approach.
Though now without it, i'd agree a modifier would be neat for quickly baking stuff
* @stann co * Yeah well i dont they are going to add any modifiers anymore because they are beeing replcaed by gn. But i already have a idea for a Chache/Bake node that would bake the dynamic geometry into a new mesh or maybe object idk yet.
Yes, 3dsmax has a Material modifier doing exactly what you suggest. I'm also missing it in Blender, all sort of same geometry but with different materials renderings (like we do a lot in industrial, furniture and product design) would be much easier.