Hi. I am not sure why it is not working, but correct me if I am wrong; if I Instance duplicate using Alt+D, shouldn’t I be able to change the shader by making single material?
Regardless of the option I check, I can not modify the shader independently for each instance.
Thank you
(Hmm… this might have changed over time and the showed possibitiels are in fact not all applicable…)
A Duplicate Linked object can’t have any different materials because it shares all data…
…you can make the “data” (-> geometry) single and so alter the appearence and you share the material or make the "data and material" single user to change also the material…
If you want the (linked) instances have a different materials the you have to use some shader tricks… for example using the location to alter the color…
Thank you, basically Alt+D will not allow me to change materials without some hacking!
You can, you just have to change the material allocation from “data” - which is shared when using ALT + D - to “object”.
Ahh…thanks… and i learnt something (almost) new again… never looked a the those tiny icon… even if i knew about object and data … i almost mentioned it… data… 
Yup it’s a bit hidden. I think the devs want to get rid of this feature (or redesign it) because it’s also bugging out the override system if I remember correctly.
