Material Variant inheritance

Terminology

Material Variant hierarchy. A parent can have one or more children.

Action	Explanation
Reparent	To change the parent of a Material Variant.
Override	A change to a Property of a Material Variant. Multiple changes to one Property constitute one Override.

How inheritance works

The effect of a change to a Material or Material Variant depends on its place in the hierarchy.

Action	Recipient(s)	What happens
Change a parent	Child	Any change or Override revert to a parent automatically propagates to a child.
Change an ancestor	Child	A change to an ancestor automatically propagates to a child.
Lock a property on a parent	Child	If you lock a Property on a parent, Unity removes all Overrides to the same Property on the child. You can no longer change that Property on the child.If you unlock the Property on the parent, Unity reapplies the Overrides it removed from the child.
Change a child	No effect	A change to a child does not automatically propagate to its parent or ancestors.
Change a descendant	No effect	A change to a descendant does not automatically propagate to its ancestors.
Apply as Override In Variant and Apply to Material [Name][Name]	Parent or ancestor Material Variant	You can apply an Override upward in the hierarchy. The corresponding Property of the parent or ancestor automatically changes. You can only apply one Override at a time.
Apply to Material [Name]	Parent or ancestor Material or Material Variant	You can apply an Override upward in the hierarchy. The corresponding Property of the parent or ancestor automatically changes. You can only apply one Override at a time.
Revert an Override applied upward in the hierarchy or Revert all Overrides that are applied upward in the hierarchy	Child or descendant	The only way to revert an Override applied upward in the hierarchy is to revert this Override on the recipient parent or ancestor.

The Material Variant Hierarchy dialog

Here are three illustrations of the Material Variant Hierarchy dialog indicating the control that opens the dialog and the appearance of the different hierarchy levels.

A Material with a child Material Variant

A Material Variant with a parent Material Variant and ancestor Material

A Material Variant with a parent Material and child Material Variant

Prevent the creation of circular dependencies or orphans

Unity prevents circular dependencies between Material Variants and provides a warning when you delete a parent.

Error messages

Material [name] is an ancestor of [name]. Hierarchy cannot contain circular dependencies.
Material [name] has a missing parent with GUID: [######]

Material Variant benefits and limitations

Create, modify, and apply Material Variants