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When I insert a block the block's materials show up in the scene manager.

If I edit that block and change materials or add materials the revised or new materials don't seem to show in the parent file scene manager.

Please try enabling Scene Manager > Options > Prefer Imported Materials; upon returning from the new instance of Rhino (the one opened to edit the linked 3DM), the materials from the linked 3DM should be overwritten with their altered versions.

what do you mean, by 'if you change or add material'? in the rhino file you inserted the block into or the original rhino file?
because maxwell materials won't be transferred to external blocks

I think he means: where you have a linked block, and you double-click it to use BlockEdit, and Rhino asks to open a new instance to do the edit. In that case, you could add a new material, or edit an existing one, in the linked 3DM, and you may want the change to be brought back over to the current 3DM, once you save and exit the temporary Rhino instance.

Yeah you got it Jeremy.

OK I remember we talked about this briefly in another thread which I can't find...

but my materials browser is becoming a serious mess from all the linked blocks (which in some cases for various reasons it doesn't make sense to use a MXS reference)

Would be really nice if I could hide or not load all the materials that aren't used in the actual main scene.

I have done some experiments here with this, but it ends up being a relatively complex thing to accomplish, so no firm word either way at this point.

Even some way to organize them, folders, or a tree structure or something so I could dump all the referenced ones out of sight.