material completly locked after override

[PetrZ]

I tried to use overrides to drive multiple different materials with one shader (eg.

surface port -> phong diffuse -> some tree..
|-----------> phong specular -> override

override -> phong specular -> some tree

But when I apply override all shader parameters are locked, not only one that's overried is applied.

Why is there this strange behavior which made them useless for materials? Will this be fixed in ICE?

I know there is some work around which requires scripting, but it's not exposed to UI like in other software :(

Is there any user friendly solution ?

[paulrus]

Can you explain it a bit better? Are you applying the override to a partition? If that's the case, then yes the override controls all the surfaces in that partition.

Just create custom partitions and then apply an override to just that partition in that particular pass. Stick only the objects you want to affect in the custom partitions.

[misterdi]

I know it's a bit annoying.

This is I believe based on the way XSI create a new material on pass with shader override. The new material is created when XSI enter that pass and lock the source material.

So in other word, you still can work with the original material (before override) but you can not see the changes until it is refresh by exiting and re-entering that pass, which create a new copy of the original material.

Yes it is a bit annoying, because you cannot see the changes refresh in region render, as you modify other parameter on the original shader.

[PetrZ]

There is screenshot (on partition it's same) http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/6241/lockedoverridefh8.jpg

Yes it's anoying. Easy tweaking is not possible :(

[misterdi]

In your case, how about linking parameters from a master to all materials.
Each sphere needs to have their own materials (a copy of the master), link every other parameters except the one that you want to change.

This mean if you tweak the master, other materials will follow.

With partition it's a bit different, when you going out of the pass (with overriden partition), the Lock materials will be removed, and recreated when you re-enter the pass. That's mean the next time you change to that pass all the changes from the master will automatically copied through.