No matter what Rendering engine they require, one of the absolute most critical techniques to master early on-or to start mastering now if you are a seasoned animator-is organizing your Material libraries.
As you build more and more scenes, you will often find that you spent hours building a material some time back that you would like to use on a current project.
The problem is that you do not know what scene you used it in or, possibly worse, where the scene is now stored.
The 3D Studio product line, even since the DOS days, has been able to organize materials into libraries.
With 3D Applications, browsing Material libraries and assigning materials to objects has been greatly improved.
You no longer have to use the Material editor to assign materials.
You can also browse materials as they are constructed-meaning which maps the material is comprised of-in a tree-like fashion.
the Material/Map browser with the 3D Application.
mat Material library file broken down into Material/Map trees.
Since building and assigning materials have gotten so much better in 3D Applications, why not take advantage of being able to organize them as well? Organization can involve many aspects, which are outlined below.
Depending on how many custom materials you have, you may have a large project ahead of you if you plan to organize them.
However, this can be a good way to "condition" yourself in the future when building scenes.
Granted, organizing materials may go against the very grain of the person you are.
However, when you are under a critical deadline and you want to find a great material that you built a while back, a little organization can go a long way.