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Create, edit, and assign materials

Create, edit, and assign materials to your objects in Unity Studio.
Read time 2 minutesLast updated 2 days ago
Change the appearance and texture of your objects through materials.

Create a new material

You can create your own materials to achieve the look you want without modifying existing materials. To create a new material in your project:
  1. In the Project panel, do one of the following:
    • Right-click and choose Create > Material.
    • Select Add(+) > Material.
  2. Name the material.
  3. Select the material to open the Inspector and edit its properties.
  4. Assign a material to an object's mesh in your scene.

Assign a material to an object

You can only assign materials to objects that have a mesh. To assign a material to an object:
  1. Select the object you want to assign a material to in the Hierarchy or Scene View.
  2. In the Mesh Renderer or Skinned Mesh Renderer component, expand Material.
  3. Then do one of the following:
    • Select the circle icon next to the material slot and choose a material from the list.
    • Drag a material from the Project panel onto the material slot in the renderer.
The object now uses the assigned material.

Edit an existing material in your scene

There are a few ways to edit a material assigned to an object in your scene:

Edit the material in the My Assets folder

To edit a material of all objects that share that material:
  1. In the Project panel, navigate to your 
    My Assets
    folder.
  2. Select the material to open it in the Inspector window.
  3. Edit the material's properties as needed.
Changes you make to this material update all objects that share it. For material property details, refer to Material reference

Edit the material in the object's Mesh Renderer component

You can use your object's Mesh Renderer or Skinned Mesh Renderer component to view, edit, and replace your materials. To access your object's materials:
  1. Select the GameObject in the Hierarchy or Scene View.
  2. In the Inspector, expand the Mesh Renderer or Skinned Mesh Renderer component.
  3. Find Materials, which lists each of the materials your object's mesh contains.
  4. Expand the material you want to edit. When you expand the material, the settings might be either available or grayed out.
  5. If the material's properties appear available, you can directly make changes. Note that any other objects that share this material also change. To avoid this:
    • Create a new material and assign it to one of your renderer component's material slots.
    • Or remove the material from your other objects.
  6. If the material settings appear grayed out, select Edit Material. Unity Studio creates an editable copy of the material in your 
    My Assets
    folder and assigns it to the object. This material is new so when you update it the changes only apply to that object, unless you assign it to more objects.
For material property details, refer to Material reference.

Add textures to a material

You can assign textures to a material's texture slots in two ways:
  1. Open the material either from the Project panel or from a GameObject.
  2. Then do one of the following:
    • Select the circle icon next to a texture slot (for example, Main Texture, Normal Map, Emission). Choose a texture from the list.
    • Drag a texture from the Project panel onto the desired texture slot in the renderer.
The material now uses the assigned texture.

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