What is the current consensus when it comes to material management? I know that Siger seems popular, but has anyone had a look at Vizpark's Material Manager? It looks interesting but it apparently moves all textures to a central repository and I'm not sure I want to reorganize all my folders I've set up over the years.
Any tool that is good at both materials and models?
I am fanatic to organization, so of course I have all three :- ).
Vizpark does have one big benefit to organization, 'tags'. So you can organize without strict vertical organization like in Siger ( for example CoronaMats/Wood/Oak floor.. ) but same material instance can be in multiple categories ('Oak floor' can be in flooring, wood, natural, etc... ).
But otherwise it hads tons of little unfinished features and at time forced the 'collect textures' you mention to materials. That was quite some time ago, not sure where it's at now, but this was my biggest drawback. Second was it didn't come in 'clean slate' version with no tags or materials from vizpark and couldn't get into such state.
Siger is good, it's what I use currently. Now it can batch-generate previews which is big time saver. It feels bit clunky also, biggest direct preview is tiny 200px (I can't even see what that is) and to see the higher-res you have to click on right and select to see high-res. Bit inconvenient unless you remember what material that was or you created it yourself.
Lastly, I will try to use Connecter for materials also. I already use it for HDRi, IES, Models (my textures a bit sprawled..I would rather make them into materials first). Connecter is the cleanest UI of all. Did I say how fast and great the devs are :- ) ?.
Imho this could be the winner.
