Hi, is there an efficient workflow for materials on large scale architectural projects? Unlike twinmotion there is no collapse by material option on datasmith import. This means it’s very time consuming to place identical materials across the project. My current workaround is to use twinmotion as a middle man between revit and unreal. Which works but ideally I’d maintain my object hierarchy.
The only other options are to replace referenes / consolidate assets - which crashes on large projects. Or to select objects for material change and use the material element slots. This also works but it’s not quick. I’m wondering if there’s an ideal workflow here that I’m missing? Thanks
There’s a few ways you can use dataprep to do this. You can assign metadata id tags before export, and assign a material to each tag on import. Alternatively if you have a naming structure on your imported objects, such as “xxx_GLASS” you can assign materials based on keywords.
It’s been a while since I used dataprep so I can’t go into much more detail, I abandoned datasmith in favour of FBX because it was too cumbersome.
Hey Thomas, thanks for this. I’ve since discovered a free plugin called ‘open virtual film project’. This has a ‘Material Replacer’ tool that works really well for globally swapping scene materials.