Material Naming Quirk

Hi,

So, I just spent a bit of time trying to figure out why a material I had wasn't rendering. It turns out that if you name a material with the same name as some other simobject, there is a good chance that the material will not function.

The issue is in the MaterialList::mapMaterials() function. The function calls sim::findobject() to find the material and then uses a dynamic_cast to cast it into a Material object. However, if the material is named the same as some other simobject that is not a material, then the findobject() function could return the non-material object. If that happens then the material will not be mapped in the material instance list. The result is that the material wont render.

This isn't really a bug, so much as a requirement that materials have unique names. However, it would be nice that if this problem occurs then we at least get a console error. So, I added the following console error message to the MaterialList::mapMaterials() function:

if(entry && entry->materialName)
      {
         Material *mat = dynamic_cast<Material*>( Sim::findObject( entry->materialName ) );
         if( mat )
         {
            MatInstance * matInst = new MatInstance( *mat );
            mMatInstList[i] = matInst;
         }
        else
        {  //ADD THIS
           mMatInstList[i] = NULL;
           Con::errorf("Did not find material %s.  This is usually caused by a material having the same name as some other asset!", entry->materialName);  //ADD THIS
         }  //ADD THIS
      }

edited for clarity