As a former 3ds Max user I find Blender's lack of material library management really baffling. In 3ds Max you could save any material, from any file to a single universal library that's always available for use with no extra steps needed to be taken. Why aren't they at least keeping Material Library VX add on activated by default? I ended up getting the Extreme PBR Combo add on, which comes with a huuuuuge library of PBR materials and it gives the option to save any new materials to a user library, which is just as easy to access as the main one. When saving a new material it gives the option of which model to use in saved file (defaults are sphere, cube, plane, monkey, special shader ball and you can add a custom one I believe) and then it also saves a preview image of that object with material applied for the library thumbnail. At this point I can't imagine using any alternative which doesn't provide that level of speed and comfort.
Yeah - I'm from a SketchUp background, but totally agree - there's zero built-in management tools for a library without enabling this add-on...Really weird - I can't imagine people are just re-creating the same materials over and over. I have a license to the Extreme PBR add-on but haven't had a chance to try it due to slow internet speed - will be giving it a look as soon as I can - thanks!
Yes, so far, i found extreme pbr combo is the best one. The material lib vx is a good alternative, only i found it lack of preview until we apply it. But this is a good tutorial. Thanks a lot.
3D Studio had this 30 years ago, the DOS version. But I guess the Blender philosophy is to make you re-create procedural textures every time. I'm gonna have to look into an add-on to fix this.
I love your videos..... I used to do it the way you do it on the video, but now I use the "connecter addon" It works really well for me and I can have large screen view of the thumbnails since my eye sight is not like it used to.
Thanks for the tut. I am new to Blender and have been using 3dsMax for more than 15 years. I have learnt using materials in blender yesterday from various videos on TH-cam. Below is what I have tried and it has worked as of now : 1) I m used to use a basic setup file which will load as startup file. 2) In this file I selected the default cube and setup some 10-15 materials which I usually need. Like walls ( in 3 colors), wood, glass, grass, stainless steel etc. 3) Then with the cube still selected in Outliner I a) Disabled selection, b) Hide in viewport, c) Disabled in viewport, d) Hide in render So though the cube is not visible nor it is render-able all the materials are there for future use. I don't know if this is a correct method. Please consider that I am new to blender :-) Thanks.
it's kinda ok, but still an uncomfortable solution. Better try some Libraries addons. When you will have like 500 materials it wouldn't be so easy to store them inside the default cube) Also it may drastically increase blender's loading time
I know im a year late commenting on this video. It's just the last video I saw of yours. But you have a tutorial for everything o wished there was a tutorial on. How do you do it? Keep up the great work.
@@TheCGEssentials It's a help, at least I can append items from existing BLEND files, but the Materials Library I still don't understand. It seems to change depending on what project is loaded.
Im sure somebody has solved the issue already but I will show you what I have done. I have some custom libraries built with different materials in them and saved Material Library VX. I found the easiest way to move the materials assets from one machine to another is to just copy the “matlib” folder and then copy it to the new machine into the same directory and that’s it. All my custom made materials that I had saved on my old machine are now available in Material library VX on the new machine. “C/:users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Blender Foundation/Blender/matlib”. Also be sure to save all your textures to the same folder as the previous machine too. Example I have a folder /CGI/Materials/ on my desktop so I found I need to also have the same folder on the new machine, in the same spot. Basically I just copied thst folder and placed it on the new machine. I found this is the easiest way for myself. I’m sure there are better ways but this worked for me and was really quick. You can also do the same on other OS’s including MacOS.
Well I don't know if it is an update, but I was able to directly save the material in the designated folder while I was working on a project. In that way you don't need to do a lot of steps to save the materials in an specific Blende file.
nice addon, thank you. But I fall in RAGE when think about how work with materials is organized in Blender... it's 2021 and I still can't export materials or have a native library system for this.... Can't understand why the devs don't want to make it, it is an obvious feature.
Hey give it some time, Blender is only 25 years old :) Right now my shock is split between how slow the add-on is and the complete lack of a proper materials library in Blender. Blender is a descent piece of software but it's no wonder why all the others became industry standards while Blender still remains a prototype tool for cool new features.
@@gerdsfargen6687 Hard to believe that Blender is older than 3D Studio (3DS Max), in fact Blender is roughly the same age as every other major piece of 3D software out there. I'm assuming that the wiki is correct and I also don't know if Blender started out as a one-man-operation while 3D Studio had financial backing from the start. But who knows what the future brings, maybe 3DS Max will die as a bloated corps while Blender is adopted as a industry standard.
Hello! Thanks for the video!! I have a quick question Does this add ons (BlenderKit and Material Library VX) slow down blender? Or they are just a faster way to access materials from the Internet, in the case of BlenderKit or from a folder in the case of Material Library VX
KitOps does this much much easier. Look at the Definitively EVEE materials set by Chipp Walters they use KitOps to do this with thumbnails and just Ctrl click to apply. If there rumors are right the next version of KitOps will do this in a few clicks. Hope this helps! This method you show is very long winded. I think you will find KitOps to be a much more elegant solution, and it's awesome for so many other things as well.
@@TheCGEssentials There are the Definitely EVEE materials from Chipp Walters, for the current KitOps, but KitOps 2.0 it's about to drop which let's you do it with any materials in 2 clicks. One to save and one to make the thumbnail.
@@TheCGEssentials Hey Justin, yep it's really simple to save your own materials. KIT OPS 2 drops tomorrow. Hit me up on Discord at cw1.me/discord and I'll get you a copy of the new version and EEVEE materials as well. Here are a couple unlisted videos if you want to learn more: FACTORY MODE (create materials and INSERTS) th-cam.com/video/9seBQh6H8b8/w-d-xo.html and INSERT MODE where you use KIT OPS to create stuff: th-cam.com/video/u3BstwtIRJE/w-d-xo.html
"Add to Library" work fine, it's allow you to add new materials to your stored library, just open your blend file contain the materials, or create new one and save it to work, and append the material you want to add to the library or create new material, assign it to an object and than click on "Add to Library" to add it to your collection, of course the blend file must be in the location where you picked it first one in setup of the add-on.
Yes I'm aware of how it's supposed to work - I'm saying that when I add a library, it creates the library for me but isn't properly adding the materials to the library. And the .blend file it creates doesn't contain these either.
@@TheCGEssentials Yes, this is a bit confusing. I'm kinda new to Blender (few months on it - used Maya before) and I still didn't fully understand how this works. Example: I'm working on a scene (creating a weapon) and I create a metallic material that I want to keep.... how do I save it? In Maya I could just click "save as a preset", and that was it. In Blender... it seems I have to create a blend.file first...!? Its confusing.. Maybe you could make a video on it, explaining how do we add a material that we have just created, to be saved in the Library!?
I use the Extreme PBR plug-in. It comes with a lot of decent materials and allows you to save and create your own. I export a material from Substance as individual maps (diff, normal, disp, etc), load them into ExtremePBR and save the material to my Extreme PBR library. blendermarket.com/products/extreme-pbr-addon-for-blender-279-2
Yeah - I have a license for this but haven't been able to download it just due to the file size (rural internet :) ) - I want to test it ASAP though - thanks!
@@TheCGEssentials by materials file, do you mean the Textures folder? I see it shows "\\" in that field. What should it be? I thought the materials were stored in the project?
@@basspig The libraries you create are stored in their own blend files in the folder you dictate in preferences. You can't find them because you created a library without setting a location for the add-on to put your materials. See 5:25 and on in the video
@@TheCGEssentials There are two libraries in my copy of Blender already.. Sample Materials and Templates. I did create a materials folder on D: drive just now and set the path in Preferences in Blender. However, I'm not clear on the proper procedure to save a material, say from Blenderkit, downloaded and applied to an object. My aim is to download the materials I need from the virusnet and then transfer the library to our secure work machines via USB stick. But so far the libraries come up blank, even though the Blend file with all the materials downloaded has ballooned to 20GB.
@@TheCGEssentials in what way, saving materials to be available off the bat seems like simplifying to me. The only process you repeat is after saving the blend, opening a fresh file and saving over user preferences once you append it.
Blender handles material libraries like a blind man flies a jet fighter. It is so clunky as to be virtually useless for any professional to use. It should be like 3ds max - simple, intuitive and very, very straightforward.
Hi everyone! Let me know how you're managing your materials in Blender in the comments below! :)
Metrial Library link is not valid now
As a former 3ds Max user I find Blender's lack of material library management really baffling. In 3ds Max you could save any material, from any file to a single universal library that's always available for use with no extra steps needed to be taken. Why aren't they at least keeping Material Library VX add on activated by default? I ended up getting the Extreme PBR Combo add on, which comes with a huuuuuge library of PBR materials and it gives the option to save any new materials to a user library, which is just as easy to access as the main one. When saving a new material it gives the option of which model to use in saved file (defaults are sphere, cube, plane, monkey, special shader ball and you can add a custom one I believe) and then it also saves a preview image of that object with material applied for the library thumbnail. At this point I can't imagine using any alternative which doesn't provide that level of speed and comfort.
Yeah - I'm from a SketchUp background, but totally agree - there's zero built-in management tools for a library without enabling this add-on...Really weird - I can't imagine people are just re-creating the same materials over and over. I have a license to the Extreme PBR add-on but haven't had a chance to try it due to slow internet speed - will be giving it a look as soon as I can - thanks!
Yes, so far, i found extreme pbr combo is the best one. The material lib vx is a good alternative, only i found it lack of preview until we apply it. But this is a good tutorial. Thanks a lot.
3D Studio had this 30 years ago, the DOS version. But I guess the Blender philosophy is to make you re-create procedural textures every time. I'm gonna have to look into an add-on to fix this.
@@uniktbrukernavn They're finally adding an asset manager in 2.83 which will be taking care of this I think.
I love your videos..... I used to do it the way you do it on the video, but now I use the "connecter addon" It works really well for me and I can have large screen view of the thumbnails since my eye sight is not like it used to.
can someone tell, how to add multiple paths for different blendfiles ?
Thanks for the tut. I am new to Blender and have been using 3dsMax for more than 15 years.
I have learnt using materials in blender yesterday from various videos on TH-cam.
Below is what I have tried and it has worked as of now :
1) I m used to use a basic setup file which will load as startup file.
2) In this file I selected the default cube and setup some 10-15 materials which I usually need. Like walls ( in 3 colors), wood, glass, grass, stainless steel etc.
3) Then with the cube still selected in Outliner I a) Disabled selection, b) Hide in viewport, c) Disabled in viewport, d) Hide in render
So though the cube is not visible nor it is render-able all the materials are there for future use.
I don't know if this is a correct method.
Please consider that I am new to blender :-)
Thanks.
it's kinda ok, but still an uncomfortable solution. Better try some Libraries addons. When you will have like 500 materials it wouldn't be so easy to store them inside the default cube) Also it may drastically increase blender's loading time
@@Andredy89 Thank you.
I know im a year late commenting on this video. It's just the last video I saw of yours. But you have a tutorial for everything o wished there was a tutorial on. How do you do it? Keep up the great work.
I was looking for way b to have offline material library because blenderkit don't work on a secure offline workstation.
Well this should do that
@@TheCGEssentials It's a help, at least I can append items from existing BLEND files, but the Materials Library I still don't understand. It seems to change depending on what project is loaded.
The simple asset manager add on is quite good.
Will look into it!
This is fantastic. Thanks a lot.
Im sure somebody has solved the issue already but I will show you what I have done.
I have some custom libraries built with different materials in them and saved Material Library VX.
I found the easiest way to move the materials assets from one machine to another is to just copy the “matlib” folder and then copy it to the new machine into the same directory and that’s it. All my custom made materials that I had saved on my old machine are now available in Material library VX on the new machine.
“C/:users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Blender Foundation/Blender/matlib”.
Also be sure to save all your textures to the same folder as the previous machine too.
Example I have a folder /CGI/Materials/ on my desktop so I found I need to also have the same folder on the new machine, in the same spot.
Basically I just copied thst folder and placed it on the new machine.
I found this is the easiest way for myself. I’m sure there are better ways but this worked for me and was really quick.
You can also do the same on other OS’s including MacOS.
Well I don't know if it is an update, but I was able to directly save the material in the designated folder while I was working on a project. In that way you don't need to do a lot of steps to save the materials in an specific Blende file.
nice addon, thank you. But I fall in RAGE when think about how work with materials is organized in Blender... it's 2021 and I still can't export materials or have a native library system for this.... Can't understand why the devs don't want to make it, it is an obvious feature.
Hey give it some time, Blender is only 25 years old :)
Right now my shock is split between how slow the add-on is and the complete lack of a proper materials library in Blender. Blender is a descent piece of software but it's no wonder why all the others became industry standards while Blender still remains a prototype tool for cool new features.
@@uniktbrukernavn it's 25??
@@gerdsfargen6687 Hard to believe that Blender is older than 3D Studio (3DS Max), in fact Blender is roughly the same age as every other major piece of 3D software out there. I'm assuming that the wiki is correct and I also don't know if Blender started out as a one-man-operation while 3D Studio had financial backing from the start.
But who knows what the future brings, maybe 3DS Max will die as a bloated corps while Blender is adopted as a industry standard.
Excellent tip! Thank you! :)
Glad it was helpful!
amazing thank you!!
For now I prefer just using the append, that way I can also see the previews really fast
Thanks for the video! But.. I did the stupidest thing ever, I deleted this addon. What can I do now...?
How dare you!! Now i have no excuse for not having my materials organized! :D Great tips!!
Lol! :)
This guy is awesome
:)
Hello! Thanks for the video!! I have a quick question
Does this add ons (BlenderKit and Material Library VX) slow down blender? Or they are just a faster way to access materials from the Internet, in the case of BlenderKit or from a folder in the case of Material Library VX
Doesn't really seem to. If it slows yours down, just unload it when you're not using it
very helpful turorial, hi sir, can you tell me how to make to create the slider in minutes 3.04 until 3.09
Add-on Stored views. th-cam.com/video/NwpJajIu_tQ/w-d-xo.html
great man thanks ......🙌
You're welcome!
KitOps does this much much easier. Look at the Definitively EVEE materials set by Chipp Walters they use KitOps to do this with thumbnails and just Ctrl click to apply. If there rumors are right the next version of KitOps will do this in a few clicks. Hope this helps! This method you show is very long winded. I think you will find KitOps to be a much more elegant solution, and it's awesome for so many other things as well.
I see that it comes with materials - does it allow you to create your own custom materials as well? I don't see anything about that on the website
@@TheCGEssentials There are the Definitely EVEE materials from Chipp Walters, for the current KitOps, but KitOps 2.0 it's about to drop which let's you do it with any materials in 2 clicks. One to save and one to make the thumbnail.
@@CarlTremura So as of right now, you currently can't, right? Though hopefully it gets added in this future version?
@@TheCGEssentials you can but it's not as easy as it is in 2.0, which will drop in the next few days and it's a free update for those that own 1.x.
@@TheCGEssentials Hey Justin, yep it's really simple to save your own materials. KIT OPS 2 drops tomorrow. Hit me up on Discord at cw1.me/discord and I'll get you a copy of the new version and EEVEE materials as well. Here are a couple unlisted videos if you want to learn more: FACTORY MODE (create materials and INSERTS) th-cam.com/video/9seBQh6H8b8/w-d-xo.html and INSERT MODE where you use KIT OPS to create stuff: th-cam.com/video/u3BstwtIRJE/w-d-xo.html
Hi!!! Your video helped me at 80% the 20% left is because I have a message error when I add to library, can you help me please?
"Add to Library" work fine, it's allow you to add new materials to your stored library, just open your blend file contain the materials, or create new one and save it to work, and append the material you want to add to the library or create new material, assign it to an object and than click on "Add to Library" to add it to your collection, of course the blend file must be in the location where you picked it first one in setup of the add-on.
Yes I'm aware of how it's supposed to work - I'm saying that when I add a library, it creates the library for me but isn't properly adding the materials to the library. And the .blend file it creates doesn't contain these either.
@@TheCGEssentials Yes, this is a bit confusing. I'm kinda new to Blender (few months on it - used Maya before) and I still didn't fully understand how this works.
Example: I'm working on a scene (creating a weapon) and I create a metallic material that I want to keep.... how do I save it? In Maya I could just click "save as a preset", and that was it. In Blender... it seems I have to create a blend.file first...!? Its confusing..
Maybe you could make a video on it, explaining how do we add a material that we have just created, to be saved in the Library!?
Great tip, sadly it doesn't have material previews but i'll take it.
Nice one!
Very helpful
Glad you think so!
great, thank you
so the answer is, make seperate blend file , and inside that blend file, that have material material that made with pbr file
That's one solution, yes
I use the Extreme PBR plug-in. It comes with a lot of decent materials and allows you to save and create your own. I export a material from Substance as individual maps (diff, normal, disp, etc), load them into ExtremePBR and save the material to my Extreme PBR library. blendermarket.com/products/extreme-pbr-addon-for-blender-279-2
Yeah - I have a license for this but haven't been able to download it just due to the file size (rural internet :) ) - I want to test it ASAP though - thanks!
The CG Essentials Just download the plug-in itself (66MB),the manuals and use it with the materials you already have!
@@andrewwelch5017 Interesting - I'll have to look at this - I didn't know that was an option - thanks for the heads up!
The library doesn't work. I saved a bunch of materials to a library but cannot access them after the fact.
Did you set the folder location to the location of your materials file in your preferences?
@@TheCGEssentials by materials file, do you mean the Textures folder? I see it shows "\\" in that field. What should it be?
I thought the materials were stored in the project?
@@basspig The libraries you create are stored in their own blend files in the folder you dictate in preferences. You can't find them because you created a library without setting a location for the add-on to put your materials. See 5:25 and on in the video
@@TheCGEssentials There are two libraries in my copy of Blender already.. Sample Materials and Templates.
I did create a materials folder on D: drive just now and set the path in Preferences in Blender. However, I'm not clear on the proper procedure to save a material, say from Blenderkit, downloaded and applied to an object. My aim is to download the materials I need from the virusnet and then transfer the library to our secure work machines via USB stick. But so far the libraries come up blank, even though the Blend file with all the materials downloaded has ballooned to 20GB.
Hi i like u videos - i manage mats in the same way as you
You have a single file with all the materials inside of it?
@@TheCGEssentials yes but i have not so much mats
Thanks
No problem!
Its not that hard to open a fresh startup after saving, append, and have the material floating for use in the main startup .blend
Sounds like repeating a lot of work over and over again...
@@TheCGEssentials in what way, saving materials to be available off the bat seems like simplifying to me. The only process you repeat is after saving the blend, opening a fresh file and saving over user preferences once you append it.
I could do this, I could do that, I could I could I could... DUDE!!! 5:17 Done!
Interesting - most people just click off the video if they don't like it. Oh well - doing my best here
Blender handles material libraries like a blind man flies a jet fighter. It is so clunky as to be virtually useless for any professional to use. It should be like 3ds max - simple, intuitive and very, very straightforward.
Never used Max, so I can't comment there, but I think clunky is a fair description