Two different materials controlled by the same node

[Ibycus]

Quick question, is it possible to setup a metallic material and a diffused material such that they are both controlled by the same color node? I'd like to setup some materials where the same color node is controlling the diffuse color and the specular of different materials to change them at the same time.

I found one way to make this work using a mix material but I want to set this up for a lot of materials and the mix material just makes it more messy.

Thanks!

[niestudio]

-redacted

[Ibycus]

Ah, yes that does seem to work.

Only issues I am having now is that when I move the color slider (C4D color not rgb octane color) both materials update after the first move but then if you move it again the second material stops updating. Does the same happen with you?

[niestudio]

can you post scene or at least a screenshot of node editor?

[aoktar]

It's not absolutely adviced usage. One material will not get updates due not owning the sharing node. Try to use a xpresso or scripted for sharing control.

[frankmci]

Ah, yes that does seem to work.

Only issues I am having now is that when I move the color slider (C4D color not rgb octane color) both materials update after the first move but then if you move it again the second material stops updating. Does the same happen with you?

Ahmet and I and went back and forth about this a few months ago. In short, the underlying architecture of C4D doesn't directly support sharing nodes between materials. You can still do it, but because of that architecture, you won't see the changes propagate to the other materials without resending the scene to the video card.

There's more information about it in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=65299

[niestudio]

It's not absolutely adviced usage. One material will not get updates due not owning the sharing node. Try to use a xpresso or scripted for sharing control.

Apologies, I use the technique I described, BUT I use 1 RGBSpectrum piped into two materials that are in a mix. Perhaps I wasn't making changes to it often enough to see the refresh anomalies.
I removed the misleading info.