This is an issue across all Octane plugins - specially those that are using in a multi-user environment, and I've tried a number of solutions - none of which have really provided a satisfactory solution.Would it be possible within the future releases of the plugin to give an option to store the texture files used when designating a default material?
I would imagine this would be a enable/disable option, with the ability to set a default path to save the files, similar to the ability to select the location of the texture files for the live database, and when selecting 'save as default' the plugin would duplicate the texture file to a designated location, and link itself to it.
This would mean that when creating an array of default materials, the texture files some of these are linking to will all be within a consolidated folder. This would also mean that if any of these texture files were either accidentally moved or deleted, or if one wanted to share their default library set-up, there would be no missing texture links.
Most Revit texturemaps will be sourced from the Revit texture library - so as long as other users have that version of Revit installed, the texturemaps will be in the same place. But for other texturemaps (those which you have manually linked to an Octane material and then done a "Save as Default" - those texturemaps won't be on other's PC'. So it's only really the non-Revit library texturemaps which are of concern - however there is probably not a definitive way to determine if a texturemap is a standard Revit library texturemap or not - so this creates an issue. Also, when the plugin copies a texturemap to the "default" folder, what happens if a texturemap of that name is already there?
In the short-term - you can manage all this yourself....create a older in a "common" area (ie. C:\ProgramData\OctaneTexturemaps), copy the texturemaps that are NOT standard Revit library texturemaps into that folder, then link to the Octane material and "Save as Default". Even better - save the texturemaps to Dropbox, or a network drive, then create a symbolic link to that folder from c:\MyOctaneTexturemaps.
Also, keep in mind that if the plugin cannot find a texturemap, it will ask the user for a folder to search for the texturemap - and this path is "remembered" for other missing texturemaps when loading the scene into Octane. So if all non-Revit library texturemaps are on c:\myfolder, and another user opens the scene and the texturemaps are in c:\yourfolder, they just need to point the plugin to that folder when the "Cannot find texturemap" dialog pops, and they will all be relinked.
Does that help?
Paul