Targeting a material[] array element via GetComponent dot notation?

Hi Devs,

After some research today, i found that when a material[] array variable is declared and instantiated, a copy of the material array is returned, not a reference.

Does this impact the dot notation capacity to reference a specific material within an array of materials on an object?

For example, this code scrolls the texture on an object with a single material.

GetComponent<Renderer> ().material.mainTextureOffset = new Vector2 (offsetHorizontal, offsetVertical);

... I tried placin an array reference in that line of code "material[2].mainTextureOffset"

... the compiler complained with error CS0021: Cannot apply indexing with [] to an expression of type `UnityEngine.Material'

I suppose the proper way to do it is declare a variable of type materials[]
get a copy of the materials array held by the object
make the Vector2 offset to the mainTextureOffset of the required element in the cached material[] array
set the object's material[] array with the cached material[] array.

although it would be nice to somehow access and adjust the mainTextureOffset of the object's material[] array's third element directly.

 

renderer.material

returns the first material on the renderer. If the renderer uses multiple materials and you want to access them then you should use

renderer.materials

instead (note plural "materials"). See here for more info.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by your first line. I think you're confusing a couple of things. The

renderer.materials

array will return a copy of the materials array on the renderer. Even though it returns a copy, you are still free to modify the material properties itself, so you can do this:

renderer.materials[2].mainTextureOffset = new Vector2(offsetHorizontal, offsetVertical);

However if you want to assign a brand new material to slot 2, because you get a copy of the array, you'll have to do this:

Code (csharp):

1. var materials = renderer.materials;
2. materials[2] = someNewMaterial;
3. renderer.materials = materials;

Sam

 

cheers for the valuable information.

very satisfying to find a solution so very simple. change the "material" reference to plural "materials" and then include the array element reference in square brackets.

also the quick code snippet on how to assign a new material to a material array element at runtime is super appreciated. this could make it easy to allow for player customisation of game elements, interactive runtime responsiveness of objects.