1.  There are two main ways to assign materials:

• You can drag and drop a material from the keyshot material library.  Doing this does not link the geometry.  

• Alternatively, you can choose to drag and drop from the in-project library.  Doing this links the materials across the geometry.  

2.  Linking and unlinking -  There are a number of ways to do this. . 

       •        Method 1:  

Go to the scene tree and make a group selection

Right click the  selection and select “Link material”.  Your selection will be assigned the same material.  The scene tree shows only one instance of the material and the there is only one thumbnail listed under the in-project library.

Now go back to your selection

Right click and select “Unlink material”.  The scene tree shows multiple material thumbnails.  Each material corresponding to each individual part or model.

       •        Method 2 (unlink only):  Right click  a part and select “Unlink material”  .  To unlink all materials in one click, select the top level of the assembly in the scene tree and select unlink to unlink all parts

       •        Method 3 (linking only):  To link all materials in one shot, Drag and drop the material from the keyshot library onto the top assembly item.  This links all parts and subparts.

       •        Method 4: Use hot keys Shift/Command+LMB  to copy material (pause), then Shift+RMB click to paste material.  The geometry is now linked (pause).  You can also use Ctrl+Shift+RMB to assign a copy and not link the geometry.

Now let’s talk labels and textures.  When you have two parts linked by geometry, sometimes a label will not show up on one of the parts or the texture may look distorted. To fix this, unlink the materials and use the position/mapping tool button to re-postion the label or texture.

       •        In summary:  Any material changes done to a linked part, will affect all linked parts.  Any material changes done to an unlinked part will only affect that part. drumroll.