Hello. am trying to finish up a project i started when i was using only the blender internal render. Switching to cycles.
my prob is when I switch to cycles no node comes up for edit.
so I need to create a new node for the material, edit, assign…etc…
But how can i remove a previously created material from the drop down list?
In the picture for example, I want to keep the “cycles metal” but want to remove the “metal”.
And this is also to just clean up in general. removing old options i no longer want to keep in the model.
thank you
D
A purge button would be redundant and would not solve this issue; Blender already purges any datablocks with zero users. If it still appears in the dropdown, it isn’t unused. Just because you don’t know what the user is doesn’t mean it has no users.
I would much rather have a ‘save unused material’ option so it doesn’t get deleted in the next load (That and being able to switch the load order between constraints and modifiers)
That also already exists. Have you ever noticed that beside each material there is a number (the current number of users of that datablock) and a letter F? Press the F to give it a fake user, and it will be saved even if it is not assigned to any object. This feature is available for all datablock types, not just materials.
From an UI point of view it would be wiser to have a button with which you can delete what you dont use anymore. A mesh doesnt stay in view neither when you delete it. Why a unused texture or material that you want to delete? It`s one of those inconsistencies that i never understood.
It’s not inconsistent… people just don’t seem to work with mesh datablocks as much as they work with material datablocks. The mesh datablock actually is still available after the object is deleted (until you save and reload your .blend file, that is). To verify:
Open blender and delete the default cube
Add a new mesh object (could be anything, but it’s more clear if it’s not a cube)
Look at the Mesh Properties section of the Properties editor, the first panel is a datablock widget. If you click on its dropdown, you should notice that you have a Cube mesh datablock with zero users… that was the default cube. In fact, using this widget, you can swap your mesh out and replace it with the default cube mesh.
A texture doesn’t stay in view either. It just remains available in the menu until the file is saved with no users of the texture. The same is true of any datablock, including mesh datablocks, as Fweeb described. Texture, material, mesh, armature, action…all of these types of datablocks behave the same way in this respect. The only inconsistency is that you haven’t consistently noticed this behavior in all cases yet.
The only inconsistency is that you haven’t consistently noticed this behavior in all cases yet.
Indeed. I haven`t noticed this behaviour before
It’s not inconsistent… people just don’t seem to work with mesh datablocks as much as they work with material datablocks. The mesh datablock actually is still available after the object is deleted (until you save and reload your .blend file, that is). To verify:
Open blender and delete the default cube
Add a new mesh object (could be anything, but it’s more clear if it’s not a cube)
Look at the Mesh Properties section of the Properties editor, the first panel is a datablock widget. If you click on its dropdown, you should notice that you have a Cube mesh datablock with zero users… that was the default cube. In fact, using this widget, you can swap your mesh out and replace it with the default cube mesh.
This behaviour, to keep the datablocks intact when the content is already deleted, may be consistent from a programmers point of view. Maybe you need it for Undo? But it is not consistent from a users point of view. I have deleted the geometry. It should be completely gone, with all its components. That the datablock still exists means it is not completely gone yet.
What is the reason that i have to close the file to actually delete what should be gone with deleting the object? Why do i have to close Blender to finish the delete process? This should already happen with pressing delete.
This behaviour has driven me crazy with textures more than once. You delete an object, the textures are not longer in use. But you cannot delete the textures from the dropdown list until you close Blender. This is inconsistent from the workflow point of view. And i have seen this behaviour in no other software before. It is very uncommon to close a file so that the Delete action gets finished.
Ah, you’re just using the word “inconsistent” incorrectly. It is consistent; it behaves the exact same way throughout the program, and once you understand the concept it is perfectly predictable. You just don’t like it. The word you’re looking for isn’t inconsistent, it’s “annoying.” :yes:
Learn to take advantage of it. This behavior allows you to save a datablock that you’re not currently using by giving it a fake user, so that you can come back and use it later. It also lets you unassign datablocks while you still have the file open without losing them immediately. And if you unassign a datablock from all users but it still shows up with a 0 next to its name until the next time you open the file, so what? It’s not hurting anything by being there, and it remains available in case you change your mind about needing it. Get used to new things.
I would just like to add that I find it useful - maybe even liberating to think of objects as a collection of datablocks and of an open blend as a ‘palette’; once I’ve mixed up a mesh or a material or texture but decided not to use it (painted over that part of the painting) it’s still there on the palette just in case.
Every other program has this as well but Blender allows you to ‘retrieve’ and reuse the deleted data without using ctrl Z and erasing all the work you’ve done in between deleting the object and realizing you needed that texture or material . It’s a timesaver. You are moving things off the ‘canvas’, but not washing them down the sink.
Why throw away the time and effort used in their making until I’m calling it a day for that session? When closing up I can finally decide whether to save them with an F or not. I don’t necessarily want to make that decision in the middle of my modeling workflow.
Just one simple question. How often do yo use it really, how often do you “take advantage” of the remaining fragments? And how often do you delete objects because you really want to delete them? For me that is zero against 100%. A substitute for Undo? Well thats what Undo is meant for, isnt it?
Yes i know. Blender has a undo problem here and there. But that`s something that needs to be fixed at the Undo end, not at other ends.
