Cineversity

Hello,

This is a sort of age old issue which I never really bothered looking into until now, but I’m sure many others must have.
The best solution I’ve come across so far, is to add random text to the selection field of the tag in order to “disable” it.
This is fine, it allows keyframing or control via takes, but its still a bit annoying, hence why I never bothered to ask about it before!

Is this fake selection tag reference the best solution for toggling between multiple texture tags? I wonder why it is not feasible to add an “enable” tickbox for texture tags?

Hi Nick,

Do you want to change what is in the Texture Tag (the Material) or do you want to change the Texture Tag itself, perhaps both?

Cheers

In many cases I need to have the same hierarchy of objects rendered with different material tags, so that includes the stuff in the tag (UV info / scale etc)
I had thought the best way would be to have all the tags on one object and then toggle on the one(s) I want to use.

Thanks for clearing that, Nick.

I would certainly think that the Take-System is the fastest way, especially when it comes to rendering and the output of all “Takes”. Which can easily take the Selection Entry.  Please have a look at the example:
Scene File
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/ofWRKwCrlVkuCavjN2FgSdWP2vuEiNv0x9OpCw6tFOO?ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy

Place all materials, perhaps one extra to the Object. Set all materials to Selection X (or what ever you like) for the Main Take. With each new Child take, drag the material you want for this specific Take and delete the X. Name the Take wisely.

The Layer system is usable, but since the Take system can also handle Layers… To manage Materials only might not work with Layers.

I could think of something with XPresso, but in the end it will be not faster than Layer or Take based ideas, and perhaps more confusing, if the take system is used later on as well.

(BTW, my approach is just a capital X in the Selection field.)

A more manual approach would be, to use Instances, and switch among those.

Scene File
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/CWa8TcEuwBkkl3L3za60zdaKrFTH2jmP4IduYBIrCHz?ref_=cd_ph_share_link_copy

Let me know if there is anything else, or something that I have missed.

All the best

That’s all great, thanks, its no problem to use selection tag field really, as you say just use one letter it takes basically as much time as ticking a box.

Thanks for the reply, Nick.

If you select all the Texture Tags, you can place all the needed X at once, then select the one that is wanted, and clear the field.

As a side note:
You could use a “Main Menu> Selection> Selection Filter> Create Selection Object”. It will not work for Texture Tags alone, one needs to select an object as well, which can be deleted from that list instantly after the creating of the Selection Object [hack!]. Then select the Selection Object and “Restore Selection” to have all Texture Tags selected.

My best wishes