So I am trying to use the Material Linker materials as a starter for building up the materials I want to use in the project.

My plan was to copy materials I like for starting with in Material Linker and then using "edit material" to dive into the materials which use a Mtlx Standard Surface.

Then I would copy/paste that shader with its material settings and inputs into the Material Library I was building, in this instance for auto materials... exterior/interior. Then tweak there, say with custom tire logos, brand logos, button icons etc.

The first few materials came over ok, but many of them show up black once in the Material Library.

I assume this is because the "Subnetwork" that is attached to the inputs of the Mtlx Standard Surface in each shader that comes from the Material Linker is localized somehow? That I would need to specify those Subnetworks that I want it not to grab data from the Material Linker anymore?

Just trying to figure out why the shaders don't seem to copy/paste into the Material Library straight away.

Thanks for any info.

Did you ever figure this out? I'm trying to do the same thing and running into the same issues.

Just bumping this for attention.

using "edit material" to dive into the materials (...) Then I would copy/paste that shader with its material settings and inputs into the Material Library

I suspect that the issue here is that when loading from USD the Edit Material Network LOP adds a hidden spare parameter (called shader_primpath) to each VOP node to tag it with the USD primitive it was created from. When pasting, that tag is also pasted, and the Materia Library respects that spare parameter and authors the changes at that particular USD location.

When inside the Material Library LOP, you can go to the VOP's Edit Parameter Interface, and in the middle panel toggle on "Show Invisible Parameters", and then delete the spare parameter, since it's useful only for Edit Material Network LOP.

rafal
When inside the Material Library LOP, you can go to the VOP's Edit Parameter Interface, and in the middle panel toggle on "Show Invisible Parameters", and then delete the spare parameter, since it's useful only for Edit Material Network LOP.

There was a hidden parameter called "shader_shaderprimname", but not anything with "primpath" in it. I deleted it (shader_shaderprimname), but it didn't fix the issue.

Is there anything else you can think of that the edit material network LOP adds to shaders that might be causing this? I'll keep digging.

Could you post a simplified .hip file? Something that shows a very simple original material (with just a couple of shader nodes), then the Edit Material Network with a simple change in it, and the pasted nodes in a new Material Library LOP. It would be the best way for me to track it down.

Also posted in the other thread

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14iEV0E4D2bchEkcZGNRdNXiow6Enzbcp/view?usp=share_link [drive.google.com]