@hellnbak said:
do you mean that if I make three copies of an object, there's no way to apply a material to just one of them, that it automatically applies it to all three? There's got to be a way around this, it just makes no sense.
No, that only applies to components. They are special "entities" inside your model. Make a cube for instance then select all, right click on the selection and make it a component from the context menu. Now select it again, select the Move tool press the Ctrl button and this way move a copy away. Now you have two instances of the same component in the model.
If you edit one (double click) and make any modification "inside", the other instance will "repeat" this modification. This is a good way of having lots of geometry of the same kind in a model. Say you have ten similar windows on a house or four wheels on a car and you decide to modify them - this way you only have to do it once.
If you want to modify only one (or two...), select it/them and right click again > make unique. You can add/detract to/from a selection by holding down the Shift key.
Now back to your problem. I am not sure why everything changes the material, I have to confess. Could you attach a simple example?
As for the material dialog: you can open it from the Window menu. In there, you can browse all sorts of different materials as you know. The default material is the one that you see when starting to model something and have not painted it yet. Generally it is some light colour (and the back face is some bluish/grey) but you can change these.
The "In model" materials are what you have already used. They are displayed when you click on that small house icon.
[image: Syht_Materials.jpg]
