Exactly as for Blender Internal, Cycles materials can be linked from libraries. Every blend file containing linkable assets can be a library.
Linking materials is really a useful practice: let's say you have 20 different blend files with objects using an iron shader, and that at a certain point of your workflow you need to modify this iron material in all the files; by having this material linked in all the 20 files from a single blend is possible to update all of them at once by modifying just one shader in one file.
1301OS_02_library.blend
).Scene
, Mesh
, Material
, NodeTree
, Object
, and so on; note that the various folders appear only if inside the blend file the corresponding asset to be linked actually exists).Material
subdirectory. Once inside, select the material you want to link (for example, Material_04
) and press Enter to confirm (or click on the Link/Append from Library button on the top right).Material_05
, which is simply assigned to the object but has no Fake User).From now on, every modification we make to the material in the library will be reflected in the linked material at the moment we load the file.
Not only can materials be linked, but also node groups: in this case, instead of the Material
subdirectory to link from, choose the NodeTree
subdirectory, and then select one or more node groups you want to link.
The data block name of a linked node group is grayed as well; you can modify the exposed values and colors but if you try to enter edit mode a pop up asks if you want to make the group local; if you confirm, the node group becomes editable but, of course, local and no longer linked from the library file.
3.16.212.27