Improvements for working with materials (link, rename, UI/UX...)

Ideas & Requests
1

Hi!

I’m often working on a large model that is assembled from several smaller imported Sketchup files. Often there are materials with the same name in imported files, because they need same material properties. D5 will import tham as separate materials which is OK.

However I miss ability to link duplicate materials so that they would stay “in sync” when changed. For example when I copy material from one surface to another using ‘duplicate material’ I would like them to stay exactly the same even if I change parameters.

There are several ways this could be done, here’s my proposal:

  • Add button “Link materials” which would link one material properties to the other. By clicking on a button you would pick “Child” material whose properties you want to control by “Parent” material.
  • Add “Rename material” icon
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I’d also like to suggest the following improvments to the UI/UX:

  • Keep material name pinned to top of toolbar when scrolling
  • Join Base Color and Base Color Map to the same tab
  • Add texture preview on mouse hover
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2

hi, thanks for the feedback!

The materials in the current version of D5 are differentiated by material name. If you use the same material for both B & C parts of the model in the modelling software (the material name is also the same), when you modify the B material in D5, the C material will also be changed (a black box will be shown when the material is given in D5, if both B & C parts show a black box, then the material of both parts will be changed).
If the model is duplicated in D5 (Ctrl + D or Shift + Drag Axis), there will be a correlation effect between the materials of the two models (if you change the E material effect, the D material will be changed as well).

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3

Hi!

Thank you for your explanation but it is not working like you described. At least when materials are duplicated between several models.

See my video below:

The way it’s working now is confusing. Expected behaviour would be like you described - duplicate materials change everywhere when properties are changed.

Howeve now this is not working properly when materials are duplicated from one object to another. They behave like independant copies but have the same name. This is very confusing. Also when object is duplicated onto another object the old material cannot be restored via ‘Reset’ button on material panel.
D5 material reset is not working on duplicated materials