I have a scene file with a bunch of materials that I'll refer to as the master materials scene file. There are no shading groups or geometry in this file.
I also have other scene files with models. These models have a handfull of the materials in the master scene file though I've stripped these duplicated materials of all texture and utility nodes so they're what I'll call 'naked dummy materials.'
These models used to be a part of the master material scene file, but the geometry is just too heavy to deal with anymore. So I exported all geometry into different files.
I then renamed the materials that were exported with the geometry with a prefix of "EXP" that precedes the actual master material's name. I wanted to keep the shading groups that the models had.
So the master material scene might have a material called bone14, while the modeled scene has a material called EXPbone14
I plan on importing the different model scenes, reassigning the models the master materials, then deleting the exported naked dummy materials
I want to be able to click a button on the shelf to automatically take any material with the prefix EXP and have it's shading groups assigned by the master material without the EXP prefix
on another note, I'd like a script that will select all shading groups and delete them without deleting the objects associated with them. I can't seem to figure out how to actually select a shading group node in general without resorting to selecting a specific named one.
How do you select shading groups by the type of node they are?
I'm barely learning about mel scripting and would appreciate any guidence or if someone can just flat out write the script, I'd be so greatful.
thanks