duplicate with linked material option

[andy.engelkemier]

I prefer having duplicate the way it is, in most cases, because it avoids accidentally changing materials of hidden objects.
BUT that's not always the case. Sometimes I just want another copy of my object and I don't want 2 copies of every material.

So a second option would be nice.

Alternatively, and this Might be more useful in other situations as well: link identical materials.
My preference would be to highlight a bunch of materials, and have it only link materials within that selection. This allows you to purposefully leave a few materials off, that you might need to edit soon.

But I'd like a quick way to link materials that aren't different other than the name. That would be nice. If you have 50 materials, then duplicate an object, that means you have to go through 50 material links. And every time you link one, it jumps back to the beginning of the list! It's a lot of tedious work that could be avoided with this feature.

[richardfunnell]

In Preferences > Advanced you can check the box to "Link materials of duplicate parts."

Let me know if this helps.

[andy.engelkemier]

It helps, but the problem is not solved. That only applies to actions you take After you change the setting. It would be nice to run a command that links them after they have been duplicated.

I'm not saying this is a completely necessary feature or anything. But it would be nice to have in case you forget to turn that on/off before doing an action. Especially since you never know what you can/can't undo in keyshot. Duplicate an object? You can't undo that. Who knew.
But you can delete it. So what did I undo? I have no idea.

So I guess there's another suggestion. Tell me what command I undid. Sometimes I do something like make an environment rotate change. then I try and undo it, and it really does the undo on something else. But I might not notice it unless you show me with some text. Max does that. Rhino does that too.