Make Single User greyed out after scene is reopened

[phoe-nix-art]

I’m working with large assets. In order to keep the scene light, I’m linking them instead of appending.

Now, I’m not sure if this is the right workflow, but since I still need to tweak the materials, I use Make Single User/Materials.

While I had the scene opened, it seemed to work. I could indeed tweak the material, while avoiding appending the whole asset.

When I reopened the scene, the tweaks were gone, and the materials were once again greyed out.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there a different approach to what I’m trying to do? Or is this a bug?

[Okidoki]

I’m not sure if i can follow:

1. linnking scene light
2. tweak material by making single user
3. When… reopened the scene

Light do not have a material so what do you make single user… ?? A at least for 3.6.10 making a light single user or unlink is not implemented and make local has to be used…

Also i think you mean reloading the newly saved files and not the old/unaltered scene… ??

[phoe-nix-art]

Hey @Okidoki

What I meant is light as in lightweight.

[DNorman]

I do not use the linking function, but I have read that overrides do have many known problems.

There is a long thread here for override problems, I think this is related, you could try asking in that thread.

Links & Library Overrides are still glitchy after 4 years of development

Does anyone use these in their work? Have you used them a long time? If so, do you think they work reliably? We have begun to try them where I work, but… Also, of course the usual UX issues which aren’t allowed to be seen a bugs… The only way to link a hierarchy into your file is to link the collection its in. However, there’s no easy way to then override the hierarchy and make changes to it, since you can’t just make the collection local. You have to move the enti…

Edit; just seen your last post! I thought you meant the world lighting or light nodes.

Have you tried making a new copy of the material with a new name instead of “single user”?

[phoe-nix-art]

Thanks, @DNorman

I thought about making a copy of the material, but at first it didn’t work: with the original asset selected, even after making the material Single User, I couldn’t copy the material.

I tried again after your suggestion. This time, I created a dummy object (just a plane), applied the original material, and I was able to duplicate it. Or, I could make single user the original object itself, but at that point is not linked anymore, and the file size increases dramatically.

The problem is, I need to do the same for a lot of objects, which is not ideal in this case.

If indeed it’s a limit of linking assets and overriding some parts, it’s quite limiting, it kind of defeat the purpose.

Too bad though. The asset library is quite an important aspect of Blender’s workflow. Considering this issue, and the fact that in my case I get constant crashes when using it, it’s quite a bummer.

I’ll take a look at the thread you suggested.

[DNorman]

@phoe-nix-art

it’s quite a bummer.

Yes it is, I am pretty sure they are working on it but as always they take time.

Just a thought, maybe you could link the mesh data and append the material separately from the asset browser.

[phoe-nix-art]

@DNorman

Just a thought, maybe you could link the mesh data and append the material separately from the asset browser.

Interesting idea. I’ll see if it’s doable. I’m using BotaniQ and Vegetation tree assets. Right off the bat, it doesn’t seem there’s a way to append the materials, but I’ll double-check.

[DNorman]

@phoe-nix-art

Right off the bat, it doesn’t seem there’s a way to append the materials, but I’ll double-check.

Not sure how those addons work but if there is a master blend file that contains the assets you should be able to (or mark the materials as assets)

[phoe-nix-art]

Thanks for the tip, @DNorman !