[jvanmetre]

I am anticipating a project which requires placing a lot of the same chairs in the scene, so it makes sense to me to create
a block instance of the chair and then place instances in the scene.

My quick test creating a block instance, adding a MW material and then inserting it into a scene and then arraying the instance along a path worked, but the material wasn't attached to the instances when I checked objects, and that was confirmed when I did a quick Fire render.

I must be missing something -- using the latest release of Rhino 5 and MW 2.7.20.

I've been away from MW for a while and I can't remember if it's just a limitation of Rhino 5 and MW 2.7.20.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,
jvm

[JDHill]

In order for a material assigned to a block instance to have effect, the geometry in the block definition must be set to use the "by parent" assignment (i.e. Assign material by in Object Properties > Material in Rhino. This is not anything specific to the plugin, it is just how material assignment works in Rhino.

[Polyxo]

You might check out this video on Instances, it also covers the "by parent" issue.