Create a material variant

Create a material variant, change its parent, or convert a material variant back to a material.

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Last updated a month ago

Create a material that inherits properties from a parent material. For more information, refer to Material variants.

You can create a material variant from any material, including Shader Graph materials and Asset Store materials.

Create a new material variant

In the Project window, right-click on a material. This material becomes the parent material.
Select Create > Rendering > Material Variant.

Unity gives the material variant the same name as the parent material followed by Variant.

In the Project window, select the material you want to use as a parent.
Drag the material onto the material you want to convert into a material variant.

The receiving material becomes a variant of the parent material.

Parent materials can have multiple child materials.

To change the parent of a material variant, also known as reparenting, use one of the following methods:

In the Project window, drag the new parent material onto the material variant.
Select the material variant, then use the foldout (triangle) at the top-right to open the Material Hierarchy window. To set the parent material, select the Parent picker (⊙).

The Inspector window of a material with the foldout at the top-right selected, and the Material Hierarchy window open with the Parent property.

A dialog appears to warn you if you try to create a circular dependency.

To remove the parent from a material variant so it becomes a regular material again, follow these steps:

In the Project window, select the material variant.
In the
Inspector
?
window, open the More (⋮) menu next to the material name.
Select Flatten Material Variant.

You can also open the Material Hierarchy window, then select Material in the dropdown.

To delete a material variant, follow these steps:

If the material variant has child materials, a dialog appears. Select one of the following options:

Delete and reparent children to automatically reassign the child materials to their closest ancestor, unless the material variant was at the top of the hierarchy.
Delete only to delete the material variant without reassigning its child materials. Any child material left without a parent is invalid and will not load correctly at runtime.