Max to Maya multisub material issues

Hi there,

Starting a new project and first task is moving Max game assets into Maya. Unfortunately the models are using multisubobject materials and a proprietary fxshader, and fbx doesn’t seem to work too well handling this. In Maya you just get a ton of phong shaders, named phong1 to phongN. Material names are lost and as expected, any texture associations. Oh and there are hundreds of materials! In motionbuilder or UE 4, the names at least show up when you import the fbx file. I thought I could write a maxscript to convert the multisub materials to individual materials, assigned to the corresponding faces but cannot find a command to assign a newly created shader to selected faces, only to an entire mesh. Which is probably why multisub materials are used in the place ( i haven’t used max in over 15 years btw and currently only think in Maya!). Just wondering if anyone has overcome this problem? My other options are using python fbx sdk to process the materials directly in the fbx file(but early tinkering with that looks like a steep learning curve, documentation is sparse) or writing my own material exporter and writing a tool in maya to rehook everything up. Or using a maxscript i found that splits mesh according to material and then using Mayas material transfer to reassociate with skinned mesh. Sure there are other ways too so reaching out to you.

Thanks!

Keith