Greetings. My problem is fairly straightforward: I have a material set applied consisting of 25 IDs. When I add a 26th, and go to browse for the bitmap, I encounter a problem: the button to the side of 'Diffuse' in the material editor does not actually open up the bitmap chooser dialogue box. Instead, gmax acts as if the box is there, and it responds accordingly (if I click anywhere, I hear the Windows error for 'A window is open in this program to which you must respond to, or cancel, in order to access the rest of the program').

I've tried reinstalling gmax, to no avail. I've also tried adding in new IDs in other scene files, with similar problems, however, it should be noted that so far, I have only seen this problem with scene files containing the particular material set in question, the one with 25 IDs. I have not been working with other files, so do not know if the problem if global, or limited to that set. Nevertheless, I need to add this 26th ID.

GMax may in fact be limiting the number of ID's you can have in a Multi-Sub Object.
Try applying another Multi-Sub Object to the needed faces, if it is possible to detach those faces to another model (such as portals or exactportals, un-collisioned faces, etc).
Edited by MoooseGuy on Dec 4, 2010 at 11:58 AM

I'll give it a shot, but I'm concerned that if I add yet another material set, I'm going to get problems in-game. I already have several different material sets applied in various parts of my map, and am afraid that tool will only look at the IDs, not the IDs within the sets (i.e. an ID of 1 in one material may be a light bitmap, but because tool only reads one material set, that ID now takes on the 1st ID of the set tool read, if that makes sense).

Of course, I don't know if this is the case or not. Hopefully I can have as many material sets as I want, instead of having to uniquely ID every material? By the way, the 26th ID I need is a light bitmap, specifically for the lights on the inside of the beam emitters.

EDIT: just tried it, and I got the same issue. Also tried it with a completely new scene file, with no luck. I'm now going to a completely fresh reinstall.
Edited by CAG Gonzo on Dec 4, 2010 at 12:09 PM

EDIT to the EDIT: A fresh reinstall solved my problem. I deleted all the files left over from the uninstall, except my main preferences file (gmax.ini). It turns out it got corrupted somehow. When I replaced the fresh preferences with my old one, I had the same problem again. I'm going to read it and see if there's anything in there that looks out of place.

As it turns out, a lot of your gmax issues can be solved by using a clean gmax.ini file (your main preferences file), including those times when you open gmax and it stops working right away. Just move the current gmax.ini out of your gmax root folder, and open gmax. It should work, though your preferences have been reset to defaults.
Edited by CAG Gonzo on Dec 4, 2010 at 12:31 PM

Weird dude.
Some people use a different standard material for each id. Try doing that if it still limits the multi-sub id's.

So you're saying I could keep my different sets? I have one applied to the minimap, one for the main map, one for some components...some of those sets have similar IDs, as in the same bitmap, but different ID. I'd like to lump them all into one set if possible, but if I leave it be, will I encounter errors or mis-IDed faces?

Also, see my previous post. I edited it, and found the solution.

EDIT: within the preferences file, I had the following string set:

[MaterialBrowserDialogPosition]
ModalDimension=-1130 286 340 508
Dimension=550 181 340 508
Maximized=1

If you see something like this, delete it. I use two monitors, so osmehow, it was bringing up the selector dialogue box, but it was displaying it off screen, thus making it useless. I'm guessing the 'ModalDimension' variable controls the dialogue's position, but I deleted the whole block anyway. This way, I still have all my preferences, and have a working material editor.
Edited by CAG Gonzo on Dec 4, 2010 at 12:41 PM