LOD materials are not a subset of reference model?

Orwar · August 7

I found a few threads on the error but none seem to just have a direct, clear answer (especially as it appears the error used to come up for non-material issues, or that the answers were specific to Blender where Maya was used - well, I'm using Blender). So.

I made a mesh model in Blender. I then copied the model (materials and all), and reduced the geometry. I did notice that all the materials in the copy received a .001 to their names, and that removing it wouldn't work (which is fair, can't have two things named the exact same thing in many cases). But how do I make the materials in the low-poly model a 'subset'? I've read/seen a bunch of guides for making LOD models (though not specifically for SL), and none of them mentioned having to do anything with the materials. I also did find tutorials for linking materials - but they're for like, Blender 2.8, and neither the UI nor the keybinds to open such a menu is the same (and finding anything in the Blender UI is half impossible for us newbs!) and I'm not even sure they're doing the 'right' thing for this particular issue to begin with.

In Blender 4.2, what exactly is it I'm supposed to do to fix this?

Orwar · August 7

Okay, seems I found the issue .. So for posterity:

You want to select the object groups (the orange triangle icons), not the mesh objects or the materials, then Ctrl + L brings up the link thingy just as in the olden days - link materials and there you go. No idea why, when selecting the objects in object mode, it didn't do that the first time around. The ways of Blender are mysterious, I guess!

Aquila Kytori · August 7

Selecting the object and using copy (Ctrl+C) then pasting(Ctrl+V) to create the copy will result in duplicated materials being created and assigned to the copy :

Instead of the above use Duplicate Object (Shft + D) to create the copy, this will result in the same materials being assigned to the new object :