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i'm trying to do something that should be relatively simple, but i'm not experienced enough in blender to know how to do it.

I have a few dozen individual items (spheres). I want to assign 3 or 4 materials to them, each ball one material. I want to take this method: Random Select -> Assign Material to randomly selected objects, deselect, repeat.

First issue im running into is when I import this obj, I cant enter edit mode (I assume you can only apply materials in edit mode?).

The second issue, when I somehow figure out how to get into edit mode, I can sometimes add a material to one sphere, but linking it (ctrl+l) doesnt link the materials to the other selected objects. I managed to do it once, but then it never happened again.

Somtimes I cant even assign my newly-created material to one object at all. No idea why. Very frustrating.

Can someone walk me through how to do this please? Thanks in advance! Im really lost on how the material system works. Sometimes it seems like it works, other times it seems like it doesnt. enter image description here

h_sharp327
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  • https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75816/how-to-distinguish-material-and-material-slot/75820#75820 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/72811/materials-textures-and-how-they-relate-to-models-before-after-render/72818#72818 – Duarte Farrajota Ramos Jun 24 '19 at 10:47
  • This is good info, but it doesnt really help me with my problem, as it's not working from step one.

    I have imported my meshes. I have appplied a random select. I assign a new material slot with the random selection active. I enter edit mode and apply this material, it affects only one of the balls. I press ctrl+l to link materials to the other selected objects, and nothing happens.

     – h_sharp327 Jun 24 '19 at 16:47
  • Materials can be assigned from Object Mode directly, no need to enter Edit Mode. You may have unmatching objects with mixed materials assigned to object or object data. You may also have no active object – Duarte Farrajota Ramos Jun 24 '19 at 16:52
  • Hmm, when I try assigning in Object mode,the "assign" button vanishes. And how to I make sure I have an active object? (I assume the active object is the yellow-hilighted one, and thats the one the "linked" command takes the material from to apply it to others?) – h_sharp327 Jun 24 '19 at 17:01
  • If the object has only one slot it is already applied to all faces, no need to press the assign button. Active object is the yellow one – Duarte Farrajota Ramos Jun 24 '19 at 17:12
  • Then how to I quickly assign the selected material slot to all selected objects if my active object already has it but the others dont? If i have hundreds of objects that need the same material, I don't want to have to individually click on each one and select the material slot.

    Also, I selected one ball in object mode, created a new material slot and changed the color to blue....but the ball is still default grey. It's not assigning, even thought the selected material slot has a blue color. .

     – h_sharp327 Jun 24 '19 at 17:14
  • Oh wait wait! I think i made progress. I deleted the default material slot (grey) to leave only the blue material slot. The active ball is still grey for some reason. But when I linked by material, all the other balls got the blue material. But still the active ball is grey, despite not having a defuault material anymore. Why is that? – h_sharp327 Jun 24 '19 at 17:22
  • An alternative is to use a single material for all spheres and then use the Input-Object-Random Node to control different colours/textures/etc appearing on random objects. Random colours are easy because they can all come from a single Color-Ramp for textures and other nodes you can use a logic gate based approach http://jumpstation.co.uk/flog/Mar2019.html#p240320191458 – rob Jun 25 '19 at 11:40

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I'm about three years too late, but in case anybody else needs this answered (like I did), this worked for me (Blender 2.93):

  1. change one of the objects to the new material you want (then still keep it selected).

  2. go to the top menu and hit select (next to add) then select random (you can choose the frequency and stuff).

  3. do Ctrl+L and hit link materials, so then all the randomly selected objects inherit the material of the one you initially selected.

Cloud_In_A_Bottle
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