Which material property to use?

timCopwell

I got kind of lost :confused: as I've counted 4 slots where I can assign a material to a mesh.

When model made in blender is assigned to MeshInstance, and you click it in inspector, it will reveal it's properties where you can find surface_1/material. Also I'm no good in modeling, but suspect there might be more than 1 surface on a model.

MeshInstance node has material_override property. Okay this one is straightforward and understandable, I guess.

When assigning anything to mesh property of MeshInstance, another property appears: material/0.

And finally if you click on assigned primitive mesh icon in MeshIntance's inspector, you can find another ... material property.

Therefore my question is, which one do I use mainly. I mean, they're all a valid option probably, because they exist. But one must be more valid than others, isn't it? I understand that imported model's, and primitive mesh's properties might be separate, but even there... why are they called differently and have set/get methods called differently? Moreover why MeshInstance has it's own material property if meshes already have one...? All this just messed with my head, why there can't be one unique solution...

Calinou

Therefore my question is, which one do I use mainly. I mean, they're all a valid option probably, because they exist. But one must be more valid than others, isn't it?

There is no universal choice. It depends on your use case. If you do not intend to override a mesh's existing materials, I recommend using the material properties located outside the mesh resource (material/0 in your case). More than one material property will appear here if the mesh has several materials (all primitive meshes only have 1). Note that this property has been renamed to Surface Material Override in 4.0.

GeometryInstance's Material Override property is intended to be used for temporary effects that override a mesh's current materials (all at once). I recommend leaving it empty otherwise, so that you can apply temporary effects when needed without losing your previous materials.

cybereality

You want to use the Material 0 on the MeshInstance (not the Mesh and not the override). I've found that the Mesh materials do not always display correctly depending on other settings (e.g. they will appear without texture and white). The override should also not be used for the base material, only if you need a specific object to use a different material.