Changing Materials: Why does the old one remain?

Changing Materials: Why does the old one remain?

To change the material of an object I can drag a new material onto the object or browser line. I don't understand why the old material remains, forcing me to delete it. I understand I may have more than one material assigned to different selections of an object. But if I want to "replace" the material must I find the browser line and delete it every time?

I don´t understand why a new assigned material should replace the last one. You can not just switch between different materials by turning the tags on and off you have all materials stored at your object. If you don´t need a material anymore just delete it from the material browser may help. And you can edit existing materials too which might be easier in some cases than to change it via replacement to a bunch of objects.
That said maybe Martin can add a function where the material get´s replaced instead of added when it is explicit placed over an old one in the object-browser with an "minus"-indicator. You know how to find the wish-list already.

Cheers
Frank

Personally I like it the way it is. Having the extra materials assigned doesn't do anything since the last one is prioritised.

I think if there was a replace function on the drag and drop it would lead to inadvertent replacing of textures.

Related…*can I update a material on more than one object at a time? In my current model I have complex objects made up of multiple mesh objects. Changing each mesh material is proving VERY time-consuming and I cannot assign a material to a group it appears.

Selecting all related objects (with shift-key in a row or cmd-key for explicit selecting) and dragging a material to one of the objects in the browser works.

Cheers
Frank

One trick I have used when changing a material out that is used in multiple objects with various polygon selections is to:

• Create the new material
• Go into the Node Editor
• Copy the nodes and connections of the new material into the old material.

Yes, it takes a few steps - but in certain situations where I have a lot of individual scale/position/rotation setting for materials on different objects - changing the material out in the Node editor can save time.

I always make a duplicate of the old material first in case I need to go back