Renderer.material

Description

Returns the first instantiated Material assigned to the renderer.

Modifying material will change the material for this object only.

If the material is used by any other renderers, this will clone the shared material and start using it from now on.

Note:
This function automatically instantiates the materials and makes them unique to this renderer. It is your responsibility to destroy the materials when the game object is being destroyed. Resources.UnloadUnusedAssets also destroys the materials but it is usually only called when loading a new level.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class ExampleClass : MonoBehaviour
{
    Material m_Material;

    void Start()
    {
        //Fetch the Material from the Renderer of the GameObject
        m_Material = GetComponent<Renderer>().material;
        print("Materials " + Resources.FindObjectsOfTypeAll(typeof(Material)).Length);
    }

    void Update()
    {
        if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.A))
        {
            //Output the amount of materials before GameObject is destroyed
            print("Materials " + Resources.FindObjectsOfTypeAll(typeof(Material)).Length);
            //Destroy GameObject
            Destroy(gameObject);
        }
    }

    void OnMouseOver()
    {
        // Change the Color of the GameObject when the mouse hovers over it
        m_Material.color = Color.red;
    }

    void OnMouseExit()
    {
        //Change the Color back to white when the mouse exits the GameObject
        m_Material.color = Color.white;
    }

    void OnDestroy()
    {
        //Destroy the instance
        Destroy(m_Material);
        //Output the amount of materials to show if the instance was deleted
        print("Materials " + Resources.FindObjectsOfTypeAll(typeof(Material)).Length);
    }
}