Referenced files not updating materials issue

[ubaldo_serrano]

Well, it happens that the scene does not update the changes on material attributes on the file that was referenced. It keep the attributes and values from the moment the reference was created. Example: I have the file CharacterRig.mb with a blue Vray material loaded into a new blank scene, I create some poses, save and close. Then I make changes on materials in CharacterRig.mb, red instead of blue and adjust the reflection value... then open the scene with the poses, the pose is there but the material is blue and no reflection.

I already make the same tests with Arnold and no problem at all. I also checked the list of edits for the reference but nothing wrong there. Does anybody have a fix or a work-around?

Working on Maya 2022.3 and VRay 5.20.01
Windows 10 and macOS 11 (The issue is the same regardless the OS)

[hermit.crab]

Have you reloaded the scene through the Reference editor? Seems to work on my end.

[matthew999]

Would be interested to know an out come on this too. In the last 6 months or so I have also seen this behaviour. I'll try and dig out a scene to mimic the problem. Reloading the ref for me did nothing. I have to delete it and load it as new. Which means more work as I have to repopulate various object sets and overrides in the outliner. It doesn't happen all the time either some refs behave fine and others don't.

[Morbid Angel]

It may be a different issue. We use referenced materials all the time with vray and it works as expected. My only clue without looking at your scene is that the character rig might have the shader assigned to the original mesh (before it was skinned) maya does this. Its a guess, but if that was the case the material would effectively not be assigned correctly.

[SonyBoy]

This tends to happen when references have had edits made to them. If you make any changes to a shading attribute in the referencing file, changes to the same attr. in the source file will then be ignored. It's a fundamental problem with the referencing workflow when shading is applied at source file level. A workaround I have used in the past when wanting to make shading tweaks in the referencing file, such as when it's a lighting file, is to just do an export with all of my edits and create a new version of the source file, then creating a clean reference again. It's not ideal, and can involve jumping through hoops such as stripping namespaces and reassigning animation, but it will work.

I would love to see a more user friendly means of editing/cleaning up references, such as a simple history stack listing every edit and the ability to identify or even delete them. But I'm not holding my breath for Autodesk to do anything like this these days, ever.

[ubaldo_serrano]

UPDATE:
We made some additional tests. The changes work with "Load all references" option under Reference Options/Load Options until a Vray light is placed on the scene. It seems that creating a light keeps the materials from further updating.
I tried deleting VraySettings node from the scene, but it has no effect.

[hermit.crab]

I managed to reproduce the issue. I've logged it (internal bug-tracker id: VMAYA-11782) for developer investigation. Not sure if there is a workaround besides re-referencing the scene.