Why Profiler reports that I use THOUSAND of materials

Questions & Answers
1

Unity profiler reports that I use 2377 materials / 0.7 MB in scene.
But I have only 200 materials in Entire Project!

![alt text][1]
[1]:/storage/temp/18700-2013-11-29_2037.png

What is that mean?
Can some one explain?

2

Are you doing anything with the materials in code?

Every time you get a reference to a material it creates a copy.

E.G

void Update()
{    renderer.material.color = Color.red; // Material count will go up by 1 every frame.     
}

Instead hold a permanent reference to material as a variable

private Material myMat;
void Start()
{
     myMat = renderer.material;
}
void Update()
{    myMat.color = Color.red; // No leaks now
}

Also you may only have 200 materials however when you start the scene are they being shared across objects or do they all have their own instance of a material?

3

I do not have any code that works with materials.

When i click on material in Renderer Inspector, Unity say that each object references to material that lie in project folder.

But at the same time profiler reports 2000+ materials in use :frowning: