Hello, there’s this annoying issue that occurs randomly which also doesn’t make any sense at all in terms of workflow improvement.
Some might say it’s a feature but in my eyes it’s a bug.
Here’s example of this issue:
Why would selecting another material of the same object would auto-assign it like that?
It’s relative to what’s active. By using that drop-down, you’re just changing the material for the active element, right? Unless I’m misunderstanding what I’m seeing in the vid.
No, I’m going into different material’s graph or atleast that’s what I think I’m doing. Just like double clicking on the material sphere in UE4 or C4D etc.
Blender doesn’t have any alternative for selecting/editing materials so it makes it kinda messy when there’s somehow two different features with exact same control.
The model is single object by the way for example I can’t select only the headphones and move it.
Not familiar with UE4 or C4D, but my understanding is that materials in Blender don’t exist outside of the object they’re attached too (Which is why fake user is a thing). I just did a simple test myself, and all that drop down does is switch between materials for the active object.
Ok, seen your edit…I would just stick to the material settings in the right hand panel for selecting. Because, as mentioned above, all it’s doing is seeing the vertex group assigned to that material, and then thinking you want to change to the one you select, which I agree, is kinda silly.
What are you trying to do ? This dropdown is for selecting the material linked to the object (there can be several with face assignments)
Yeah, what’s more silly that it occurs randomly, pretty much I do exact same workflow and out of nowhere sometimes something gets assigning like that and I have no clue how I triggered it.
The headphone material isn’t supposed to change when I select different material of the same model.
Headphones, head, body is exact same object ( face assignments ).
Then, if I understand correctly your intent, you should be using the “Slot” dropdown to the left of the one you’re using.
You have a single mesh object that has multiple materials assigned to it. Those assignments go into slots. The “Slot” dropdown is what selects which slot you’re editing in the shader editor. The material dropdown selects what material to use on that slot.
Maybe you’re looking for the slot selector, it’s in the header next to the material selector. If you have several assignments per object this is how you show one material or the other
Okay, that makes more sense, never really used “Material Properties” before in my workflow as I thought everything I need is in the material graph editor.
Thanks
Just think of it like a slot machine. You have to line up the fruits to get your reward.
Seems like it could be easier doesn’t it…
If you use this addon link you can switch between all material trees in file without switching material of active object. Also removes need to hunt down object with material what you need to change.
You can have this behavior in Shader Editor if you click on push pin icon on the top left corner of Material Tab of Properties Editor.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/properties_editor.html#header
At the moment, you click on this icon, Properties Editor stops to be specfic to active object data and becomes restricted to data type of pinned tab of properties.
Then, you can browse all datablocks of this type inside the .blend file without changing active object.
As a consequence, that works with datoblock template of Shaders node editor.
That is a 2.3x feature, older that the use of nodes.
In header of node editors , the same icon will keep displayed content as is when changing selection.
That allows to select in 3D Viewport, other objects than the one with material edited in Shaders Editor.
That also allows to display content of a nodegrooup while another Shader editor is used to display a global nodetree.