How to know if a material's name is Exist? SDK(C++)

[xiaobin]

When I create a new material, I need known Is the name unique. If I do not judge in advance, the system will create multiple materials with the same name.

[istan]

Why you don't use ip->AssignNewName(Mtl *m)  ?

[xiaobin]

This function will rename the new material whether or not it has the same name.

[istan]

there's also a "NameMaker" class..

[denisT.MaxDoctor]

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@xiaobin wrote:

When I create a new material, I need known Is the name unique. If I do not judge in advance, the system will create multiple materials with the same name.

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the only one safe way to do it is collect all material names (scene or any other material collection) and check new name against this list.

built-in 'new name' or 'unique name' logic was always broken in the MAX system (IMHO)

[istan]

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built-in 'new name' or 'unique name' logic was always broken in the MAX system (IMHO)

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well, I use it often and nobody complained so far 😉

[denisT.MaxDoctor]

here are examples of 'broken' logic:

# the system doesn't check for uniqueness names with numeric suffix

# the system always offers a new name for whether it is used in the scene or not

# the NameMaker works with only 'root' names, that makes it useless when you want to check a names with numeric suffix

[denisT.MaxDoctor]

b0 = box material:(Standard name:#std)
b1 = box material:(Standard name:#std_01)

b0.mat.name
b1.mat.name

okMtlForScene b0.mat
okMtlForScene b0.mat

okMtlForScene returns TRUE for both materials but as you can see they both exist in the scene

[denisT.MaxDoctor]

assignNewName b0.mat

it modifies the name but the original name was already unique for the scene...

is it not a 'broken' logic?

[denisT.MaxDoctor]

check another example:

resetMaxFile #noPrompt 

for k=1 to 9 do 
(
	b = box material:(Standard name:("Material #" + (k+20) as string))
	format "% >> "b.mat.name
)

assignNewName objects[1].mat

objects[1].mat == objects[5].mat

objects[1].mat.name == objects[5].mat.name