[Radiance-general] Re: limited number of materials?

[Greg Ward]

There is no limit on name reuse in Radiance.  Why would there be?  A  
material/texture/pattern/mixture name only refers to that modifier  
until it's redefined later in the scene description stream, however.   
This is how Radiance avoids the problem of name reuse in multiple  
files, or the same file transformed multiple times and containing  
material definitions.

For example, if I used ies2rad to create a light fixture with a  
distribution, then made 100 copies of that fixture using an xform  
array, that would be 100 materials in the scene, all with the same  
name but different definitions since they would have different  
associated transformations.  This is an essential facility, though  
perhaps one not many people are aware of.

I hope this makes sense.
-Greg

> From: "Lars O. Grobe" <grobe at gmx.net>
> Date: November 15, 2007 8:00:19 AM PST
>
>> if you are defining a different material per face,  you'll save a  
>> bit of time and memory by reusing the same material name.
>
> Isn't there a limit how many times I could define a material using  
> the same name?
>
> CU Lars.