Project 002 - Multiple Materials- July 2006

Before I begin using multiple materials on my mech model, I'd first better find out how to use them on a simple box (to prevent problems and so forth.)

Using the toon shader plugin I can get decent single-material cel shading...

However, when I use edit mesh to plave different materials on each face, the contours do not render.

Will I need a different toon-shader plugin, or am I just taking the wrong approach to using multiple materials on a single object?

I posted on the Threedy forums to try to find an answer to this problem, and here is the response I received:

"what you need is a multi sub material.

In the material editor where you see the standard button, click that, a list comes up, in that list there is a muti sub option, click. Now it will give you a buch of stuff, but first things first, change your mesh to an editable poly. Now, you see where you can choose from vert. segments, poly's, and element. Click inb the poly option. Scroll down till you see a material id section. Here is where it gets tricky. High light all the polys you want one color, then go to the material id slot and type in a number, hit enter. Keep doing that for all the areas of the mesh that you want a different color/material. Now go back to your materials editor. In the list, there will be slots for material ids and slots for materials. Place the numbers you used in the mesh in the seperate slots, and the material you want in the material slot across from it.

I hope this helps." (big thanks to BiG ToE-3DT for the response)

The original post can be accessed here.

Using this information, I tested the cel-shading plugin using the Multi/Sub-Object material. Unfortunately, it still did not draw the contours. I feel though that it is the fault of the plugin rather than my approach, since everything seems fine with my material setup. This is especially clear when I try the same thing using the "Ink 'n'Paint" material, which has no such problems with contours

As you can see, the ink 'n paint material does the job on the box nicely, and the only reason I didn'yt use it earlier is because I didn't know it existed before a few days ago! Needless to say I'll be using this instead. I think I've got the hang of multi/sub-objects now, and this project is over.