3DS Max Multi material to Unity

[Metron]

Hello everyone,

I’m in the situation that I have to port an Unreal application to Unity (Yay). Basically, all of the meshes come in FBX.

I have a problem with the import of one of those meshes. In fact, when I take a look at the mesh in Unreal or in 3D Studio Max, it has a multi material applied (see Multi mat image). The multi material appears as should in Unreal.

Unfortunately, when I import the FBX file to Unity, I only get one material. Ideally, it should be “split” in multiple sub materials, but this doesn’t happen.

Any idea how I can solve this problem ?

Edit: The only way I found to solve this, is to use this script and re-export the fbx afterwards:
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/detach-by-material-id

Thanks,
Metron

[jvo3dc]

As far as I know this should work fine in Unity too. We usually use OpenCollada as an export format, but FBX should work the same. Do you mean you really only get one material or do you get one material for the first 12 materials that are actually all the same?

[Metron]

I only get one material instead of the 12 sub materials.

[jvo3dc]

But you do get sub material number 13 as a different material?

[Metron]

Yes… I get “WorldGrid” as a second material. It’s like “Holo” and “WorldGrid” are seen but not the others. Unreal imports it right…

[jvo3dc]

I’d say that that depends on what you consider to be right. In my opinion the way Unity does it is right and the way Unreal does it is wrong.

If you want separate materials, don’t instance them in Max. Just make the materials copies instead of instances.

[Metron]

I suppose you’re right. It’s a question of interpretation.

I’d like to see it the way Unreal does it because it mirrors how the materials are really applied to the mesh. In fact, in this case, the sub materials are used to highlight different parts of the hologram. Would be nice if Unity had an option to enable/disable this interpretation on import.

[jmanx18]

I am having the same issue its super annoying. Does unity not support 3ds max multi-sub.

[bgolus]

Unity does support multi-materials, but it will merge materials that use the same texture or no texture.