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Random Material

What is it?

The Random Material tool quickly generates and applies random materials to selected objects with interactive controls. It's perfect for creating variety in your scene, exploring material options, or quickly visualizing different parts of your model. The tool creates Principled BSDF-based materials with randomized color, roughness, and metallic properties.

Access and Shortcuts

  • Pie Menu: Materials > Random Material
  • Operator: damtools.rand_mat
  • Modal keys:
  • Mouse Wheel → Generate new random materials
  • Shift + Mouse Wheel → Randomize roughness only
  • Ctrl + Mouse Wheel → Randomize metallic only
  • Alt + Shift + Mouse Wheel → Adjust roughness (±0.05)
  • Alt + Ctrl + Mouse Wheel → Adjust metallic (±0.05)
  • Click → Confirm materials
  • ESC/Right Click → Cancel and restore original materials

Workflow

Basic Usage

  1. Select one or more objects
  2. Activate Random Material
  3. Scroll the mouse wheel to generate different random materials
  4. Use modifier keys to fine-tune specific properties
  5. Click to confirm when satisfied

Material Properties

  1. Base Color: Random HSV-based colors
  2. Roughness: Controls surface smoothness (0.1-0.9)
  3. Metallic: Controls metallic appearance (0.0-1.0)
  4. All materials use Principled BSDF shader

Parameters

  • Material Generation:
  • Color: Random HSV values with moderate saturation and value
  • Roughness: Random values between 0.1 and 0.9
  • Metallic: Random values between 0.0 and 1.0
  • Adjustment Controls:
  • Roughness Step: ±0.05 per wheel increment
  • Metallic Step: ±0.05 per wheel increment
  • Material Naming:
  • Format: "DAM_RandMat_XXXXXX" (where X is a random number)

Tips

  • Hold Alt when first activating the tool to keep current materials as starting point
  • Use Shift+Wheel to keep the same color but vary surface properties
  • Use Alt+Shift+Wheel for fine control over roughness
  • Works with multiple selected objects at once
  • Each object receives its own unique material
  • Perfect for quickly differentiating parts in complex models
  • Materials are kept in the Blender file after confirming
  • Works with meshes, curves, surfaces, metaballs and text objects

Known Limitations

  • Only works in object mode
  • Replaces the first material slot or adds a new one
  • Does not support per-face materials
  • No texture generation, only procedural properties
  • Limited to Principled BSDF shader parameters
  • Cannot save or name specific materials for reuse
  • Does not affect material nodes beyond the main shader

See Also