Managing scenes with many materials?

[Morat]

I've been messing around with a couple of scenes that have many materials which has raised a question - what's the best way to manage a scene that has a lot of materials, e.g. after Sketchup export you import the obj and have a huuuuuuugely wide mesh node with a gazillion material points on it? What happens if you re-export the scene with an added material?

Is there a recommended way of dealing with this kind of complexity?

[glimpse]

actually it isn't =) You just have to deal with that - that's it! =) good way is to look wheather You need or not so much material.. if so, maybe there is possibility merge some mapping as material is more or less the same..- use some masks and do things like that.. but ovelAll is it going to be simple? no way! =)

so basicly You left here to prePlan Your work ahead and deal with that before problem arives =) nothing helpful, but O would start from the very begining..- asking right questions.. =) then things might change..

[Morat]

I thought that might be the case

I keep fairly organised with named materials and what have you already so that works for me.

[ROUBAL]

Hi, Managing materials is always a problem in big scenes. I am working for a long time on a big city scene with many matrials on buildings, cars, buses, vegetation, urban props... And I also use instances in Octane to duplicate materials to add diversity on buildings and cars without adding too much geometry ! The amount of materials is actually huge ! Naming them with a proper name is very important, and instanced materials have to be renamed in Octane as instanced object/materials keep the same names as original but materials shaders may indeed be different !