Link all data from scene to scene EXCEPT materials

I have a freelance product rendering job that requires something like 17 different flavors of the same model. I want to animate the model and have the animation, scale, transform, everything BUT the material link. That way if the animation changes, I do not have to change the animation 17 different times but I can still change the labels of the 17 different flavors.

Is this possible? I can’t figure it out.

Yep. On your original object, change your material in the properties section to object instead of data. Now animate your thing. Now when you link your scene, chose link objects. You will have the original and the copies with everything but material. You can now just changed the material on each object as you want. You will still have the animation of the original on each linked object for rendering.

Hi! Thanks for the reply. This is great news. I have also been looking at a Map to UV pass. So at least 1 of the 2 will definitely work!

I know I’m reviving this old thread but what you said does not work.

Oh no. I think it got changed way back. Uh. I haven’t found a work around.

Ok try this. Link in your object as normal. Then Make Proxy of it. You should be able to add material as an object instead of data and delete the original material.
Will that work for you?

Sorry for the late response! I haven’t tried it yet but I’ll let you know how it goes :slight_smile:

A proxy can’t be made in this manner.

Funny. Mine works. Here is a blend with a material.
Here is the file I linked into it.
Change your paths to see it.originalfile.blend (418 KB)
linkedfilewithnewmaterial.blend (500 KB)

If you’re not in a hurry to get this job done, I once wrote a script to remove all materials from objects.

Years back, I wrote a script that removed all materials as a work around to a bug in blender. Here’s a screenshot:


As you can see, it’s working on my outdated v2.74 (guess I should upgrade) and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work on 2.79.

If you want to use it, it’s an addon and I can upload the file for you.

Randy