Now some folks may live with Blenders lack of a scene or even global scene shader editor, where some can select the shaders you want and adjust it, etc.
Blender also has no way to pick a shader in preview render… that all may work via objects for many.
But, and here comes the problem, when you use geometry nodes with instances or collection instances you have no way to access the shader. Nothing will appear in the list and you have no command that select the instanced object.
In blender any object that has geometry has access to all the materials in your file.
The object with the geometry node is an object with geometry and has access to all the materials in your file (not only those of the instanced objects collection) via the material drop-down list, both in the material tab and the shader editor.
When you say “Nothing will appear in the list” I presume you mean the material slot list of the object that you use for the geometry node. If nothing appears it is simply because you did not give it a material slot (you did not select a material or create a new one).
You can add a new material and a new slot by clicking the large “new” button.
You can add an existing material to the material slot list by selecting a material in the material drop-down. Once you have selected the material it will appear in the “list” and the preview.
You can select any material in your file with the material drop-down, it is a global file shader list.
If you are not using the geometry (and its material) of the object with the geometry node there is no need to add more than one slot as you can flip through all the materials in your file with the material drop-down list and edit any of them. This seems to be the case as you say “Nothing will appear in the list”
If you are using the geometry (and its material) of the object with the geometry node. Simply add new material slot to the list (plus sign at the right) and you can edit any other material in your file by flipping through them with the material drop down with your new slot selected. This will not effect the first slot that has the “assigned” material.
Edit: in the shader editor you can select which material slot to edit and assign any material in you file to that slot using the material drop-down.
Thanks for that long explantation, it may help people looking here.
However, like often Blender this is all thought on very low scale.
With more then 400 shader in a scene its a painful work around.
Now Blender list all materials in the outliner set to blender file, but you can’t access the shaders from there, which is absolute not understand able.
Also Blende misses a preview render. Yes it actually does. Blender has a render mode and a viewport render preview, but no render preview like every other render has. They simple skipped it, because the do not understand how professionals work.
In Octane or Redshift you get that. The render preview does what it says, it shows all the things you will see in your rendering, but it updates on changes.
Anyway, because thats fixed on camera output, it let you preview all output channels and has the ability to pick shaders for editing. So if you see a problem, simple click on the pixels in preview to select the shader. No matter if its an instance, particle etc. Its identified by the material ID.
Blender lacks this feature and it feels just awkward to habe to great a n extra object and stuff it with all the materials of your scene. Its do able, but it will slow down work.
