3D Object Material Greyed Out

[hikemike]

I am new to Unity. Using version 2022.3.48f1.

Every native 3D object I add to my scene will not let me change the color. I have been through dozens of discussions on this and I still can’t figure out how to change the default color of a Cube. Here is a screen shot of a Cube I renamed to OuterArea and you can se the Lit (Material) is disabled. So every cube I add to my scene has this default color. How to unlock it?

[Kurt-Dekker]

Any in-built Materials cannot be modified, and any Materials generated as part of the model import process also cannot be modified. After all Unity can’t go back and modify your FBX / Blender files. Think of these grayed out materials as transient representations of what was imported.

Dupe the Material (or make your own new Material) so you have a fresh copy and you can do whatever you like with it.

Keep this in mind too:

Materials materials array of materials renderer:

Generally accessing .material / .materials is going to give you a fresh copy. (See docs for why and when)

Changing material colors was working, now it is not?

This is the problem. You want to either: a) create a fresh array of material references, fill them out with Materials, then assign it back to the renderer OR b) copy out the array, make the changes you want, and put it back. I prefer option b generally, but you may have a reason for the other. It can look something like this: var tmp = new List<Material>( rend.materials); tmp[0].color = ... tmp[1].color = ... tmp[2].color = ... rend.materials = tmp.ToArray(); Or you can use good old Sy…

Adding and removing a material at runtime

If you have an object with multiple Materials, that ALSO implies that the mesh has multiple submeshes. Each Material in the .materials array corresponds to a submesh, so just adding a material to an object isn’t likely to do much. If you think you still want to, you need to: create a new blank array of Materials of the right size (+1 or -1 in size) copy the existing Materials out to the correct spot in this temp array add (or omit) the newly added (or removed) material. assign the array of M…

[altepTest]

@hikemike

will not let me change the color.

create a new material in the Project Panel. expand the Mesh Renderer component and replace the existing material in the Materials list.

or drag the material from the project panel on the object in the scene.

once you do this you can expand the material edit in the component panel and now you can change it.

[hikemike]

Thanks. That was the solution I figured out. Why do I see “Parent: Yellow”? I don’t see any reference to a parent in the original Material.

[Kurt-Dekker]

@hikemike

Why do I see “Parent: Yellow”?

Because whatever Material you have connected there is not a true Material but a Material Variant and it is a Variant of Yellow.

Try right-click make new material, then connect that. This is a fairly common workflow in Unity: assigning materials within Unity in order to make your scene consistent.

[altepTest]

I suggest some basic youtube tutorials, waiting for forum replies is not a good workflow. just search for how to do X in unity and you will get ton of great tutorials that are faster to learn and move on to more exciting stuff

[Kurt-Dekker]

@altepTest

I suggest some basic youtube tutorials

Yes, this ^ ^ ^ ^

Making new materials for stuff is basic Unity workflow.

Remember the two steps to tutorials and / or example code:

1. do them perfectly, to the letter (zero typos, including punctuation and capitalization)
2. stop and understand each step to understand what is going on.

If you go past anything that you don’t understand, then you’re just mimicking what you saw without actually learning, essentially wasting your own time. It’s only two steps. Don’t skip either step.