Linking Materials does not work reliably

[monson67]

When selecting parts in the Scene tree, then clicking the Link Materials button under the Properties tab below, KeyShot7 does not behave as expected. In KS6, the first part selected would determine the material that is applied to all the subsequently selected parts after linking materials. In KS7, it seems like there is something else that determines which part's material is applied to the rest. No matter how many times I try selecting the parts in the same order or different orders, there are some parts that always become the material applied to the rest.

It seems to work properly when selecting parts by clicking on them in the real-time render window, where the first part clicked will be the material applied to the rest. However, while this is a workaround, this can be extremely inconvenient, depending on the scene I'm working on. Some parts that I want to link together can be small and in areas that need to be maneuvered to in order to select. It is much faster to select the parts from the list in the Scene window. I really hope this is a simple fix, you'd be surprised how aggravating this is.

macOS 10.12.6
KeyShot 7.1.36 (had the issue with previous versions of KS7 as well)

[guest84672]

I tried and can't reproduce this.

What do you mean by "there are some parts that always become the material applied to the rest"? Is that some random material assignment?

Are you selecting the parts on the group level by any chance? If so, this will change the materials of all the parts in the group.

[monson67]

What do you mean by "there are some parts that always become the material applied to the rest"? Is that some random material assignment?

It seems random, but when I undo, reselect the parts and link the materials again, it's always the same part that gets applied to the rest.

Are you selecting the parts on the group level by any chance? If so, this will change the materials of all the parts in the group.

No. Selecting individual parts.

I have uploaded a screenshot of the scene tree to help clarify. The parts that are highlighted are the ones that I want to have the same material. The part "Screws" with the material "Steel Rough" are what I want to be applied to the other selected parts. Therefore, "Screws" is the first part that I select before selecting the rest. However, when I click the "Link Materials" button, no matter how many times I undo and retry, it is always "Body_SG #13" that gets applied to all of the selected parts. I've experimented selecting the parts in every different order I can think of. "Body_SG #13" is always applied. For some reason, there is something about the "Locking Nubs" part or the "Body_SG #13" material that's applied to it that KS7 thinks takes precedence over everything else. This has happened in different (completely unrelated) models with different materials in different .bip files. So it's not just the "Locking Nubs" part or the "Body_SG #13" material; it just happens to be the one KS prefers in this example. It's like KS7 is going off a different set of parameters to decide which material should be applied. It's (mis)behaved this way in every version of KS7 since its initial release. I never ran into this with KS6.

[Rex]

I am seeing the issue as well. We will investigate.

Thanks,
Rex

[Rex]

This issue has been resolved for 7.2

Thanks for helping improve KeyShot!

[monson67]

Awesome, thanks!