To assign materials to models, drag and drop them from the Materials library onto a part in the Real-time View or in the Scene Tree. Before you drop the material onto the part, you will see a preview of the material on the part beneath the mouse cursor. The material will not be assigned until you let go of the left mouse button.

Once the material has been loaded from the library, a copy will be placed into the In-Project Library in the Material Tab of the Project Window. Any additional materials assigned to the model will also be added to the in-Project Library. If the same material already exists in the In-Project Library, a copy will be created and a number will be appended to that material.

Linked Materials

In some cases a user may want to have one material assigned to multiple parts to be able to make changes to that material, and to have the changes affect all parts. You can add Linked Materials in 3 ways

• Drag an existing material from the In-Project library onto the parts you want linked.
• Copy a material by selecting a part in the Real-time View with the desired material, right-click and choose Copy Material > Select the part you want linked, right-click and choose Paste Linked Material.
• Drag the same material from the Material Library repeatedly and KeyShot will ask if you want to link the materials.

You can unlink materials by right-clicking on the part and choosing Unlink Material – this will create a numbered copy of the material in the In-Project Library.

Multi-Materials

Users of KeyShot Pro can create/add to Multi-materials by pressing Shift while dropping materials from the library onto a part.

Retaining Textures and Labels

If you are dragging a material onto a part that has an existing texture or label, you can retain them and apply them to the new material by holding Alt for textures, or Ctrl for labels.