Animating the materials of a linked model

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hi,
I was hoping to animate some emission materials as lights blinking on and off, but the options are greyed out in the model I linked using library override.
Apart from having to append models in future, does anyone know of a workaround?
Thanks.

Linked data
Linked data1074×433 41.9 KB

2

Object menu - relations - make local - all , or edit the original file.

3

Overrides don’t support materials yet, but you can create a custom property on the model and link it to the strength property with a driver. You should be able to override and animate the custom property from your animation file.

1 Like
4

There should be an icon at the top of the Shader Editor, in the same row as the material name, number denoting the number of users for/of the material, shield icon (for protecting the data-block), and the big X for deleting the texture.

The icon you want looks like a chain link or two paper clips linked together or something. Hovering over the icon should tell you what it does if you click it-- by my understanding, it’s supposed to allow you to edit the linked material by making it local.

Hope this helps.

5

Thank you all for your replies.
Being a commitment phobe, I don’t want to make the model local for each scene just yet.

Unfortunately for me the ‘chain’ icon doesn’t unlink the material, otherwise that would have been perfect.

I’ll try the custom property. Only thing is, I’ll have to reacquaint myself with drivers again!

6

For what you’re doing in this example it’s quite easy. Right click the custom property and ‘copy as new driver’, then right click the strength value on the emission node and ‘paste driver’. Done.

Just remember to always enable “is library overridable” in the custom property.

7

Thanks cmto, that was easy, sadly no joy.
I tried both checked and unchecked Library Overridable. Is this 'is library overridable" you are referring to?

Override
Override682×732 41 KB

CustomProperty
CustomProperty1982×782 94.1 KB

8

It won’t work, overrides are not supported on materials yet.

Yes that is correct, it should work. What seems to be the issue ?

9

Same problem, I can’t edit/animate the emission values despite it now having a custom property.

10

You don’t animate the emission value, you animate the custom property that is driving the emission value.

Animation

11

Thanks for your patience. I’m just picking up Blender again after many years away, lots of relearning.

My custom property wasn’t showing up in the linked model’s properties. Looking at your example, I can see I should have made the custom property in the ‘shading’ properties, not in the ‘material properties’. If that makes any sense?
Anyway it works!
Thanks.