Multiple images/maps loading

[designsforus]

Hi,
I trying to import a bunch of wavefront object (obj & mtl files) using 9.6 modeler. I have edited the mtl file to remove any extra spaces and got my texture names straighten out, but modeler is loading a seperate copy of each map everytime it encounters it in the mtl file. These are big maps, so modeler quickly chokes. I can go in and delete the images in image editor, but then I have a lot of reassigning to do, not a fun task for all the files I have to import.

I'm so close to getting this to work reasonablely automaticly....

Is there a way to stop modeler from loading the multiple copies?

Thanks in advance

[toby]

It's a workaround but can you replace the image with a tiny one, then when it's done importing, replace it with the big one?

[designsforus]

Thanks toby for the suggestion. That stops the choking when it loads all the images, but I still have many copies of the same image map loaded with each one assigned to a different surface.
I'm not that familiar with the mtl format. Is this a NT loader issue (it doesn't check for existing copies before it loads an image) or is this the way it is for all mtl importers?

[toby]

I haven't used .mtl either, and I find it really odd that LW is creating multiple copies of the same image! I didn't think it could even do that on it's own. So your images are getting cloned, they have a (#) next to them?

The only thing I can think of is update the first one of them, find that texture layer and copy it, then you can multi-select the other surfaces and paste the texture layer into them. That works if they're all going into the same channel, e.g. Color or Diffuse. But if there's any other layers in that channel they'll get wiped out.

[Silkrooster]

Sounds like a bug. When you open the image editor panel, it has multiple copies of the same image?