OK, this question might be slightly more appropriate for the materials forum, but I think this is a fairly basic situation.
I am creating a composition which consists of a number of elements. 10 to be more precise. one of the elements is one material only. the other nine are two materials - the same two. the way i have set up the nine is as follows:
basically three sets of three. object one has three identical meshes. object two has three identical meshes. object three again, three identical meshes. all nine of these meshes are to use the same two materials.
what I can’t seem to get around is that every time i go on to the next object to apply the materials, the first material seems to go as I would expect it to. but when I attempt to apply the second material to the other part of the mesh I have to create an entirely new material! can’t I just apply the second material from my list? I must be missing something. the funny thing is that once the new material that i don’t need is created, i can go back and change it to the one i wanted it to be in the first place. i just have this spare material.
would i be correct to assume that each object must have it’s own set of materials. in other words, the materials are not universal, but rather object-specific? 
