How do I make a preset that only changes the “Angle” value for REAL? [Solved]

lukon100

I want to make a materials preset that will change the “Angle” property of a surface(s) to the value of 10.

I’ve tried the usual method of making a materials preset and un-checking everything but the “Angle” value. But this is not a “clean" solution. It turns out that if I make the materials preset this way, other properties from the “donor” surface shaders get included and applied under certain conditions.

Here’s what I mean:

Suppose I have an object with one surface, and the surface has only two properties.

Property 1: Color

Property 2: Angle

From this object I make a materials preset that applies only the Angle property value. That is, I leave Color un-checked.

Later I want to apply my Angle-changing materials preset to another instance of my object.

Suppose the other intance of my object already has another shader applied to it that does not have the Color property. (For example, it instead uses a property called “Base Color”.)

When I apply my Angle-changing materials preset to this object, it does change the Angle value, but it also adds the Color property to the object’s surface, and instantiates that Color property with the value it had when I made the preset - even though I left the Color property un-checked.

From this, it appears I need a way to make an Angle-changing materials preset that REALLY has no other properties in it. Simply leaving all other properties un-checked is not working. I need a way to totally exclude the other properties from consideration.

I suspect the Shader Mixer can help.

Perhaps I can begin by making a shader that only has the Angle property in it. Then a materials preset built on that shader would work properly.

But I’ve never used the shader mixer. I don’t know what it can do.

So, is there in fact a way to make a shader comprised of only the Angle property?

murgatroyd314

I've never tried this, but the first thing that comes to mind is to save the preset uncompressed, then manually edit the file in a text editor to remove all other properties.

crosswind

Material Preset saves the shade data that used on the surface(s), for instance, Iray Uber. When you apply the Preset to an object, it loads Iray Uber first of all, so certainly Base Color (as well as others...) will be back...

For this unique requirement, as murgatroyd314 said, you have to modify Material Preset duf file. Open the file with Notepad++, remove the section of "Materials".

lukon100

Thanks, you folks!

This fix worked for me. It works for all ceses of shader-swapping I've tested. Hopefully it just works for ALL shader-swapping.

crosswind