MaterialPropertyBlock

Description

A block of material values to apply.

MaterialPropertyBlock is used by Graphics.RenderMesh and Renderer.SetPropertyBlock. Use it in situations where you want to draw multiple objects with the same material, but slightly different properties. For example, if you want to slightly change the color of each mesh drawn. Changing the render state is not supported.

Unity's terrain engine uses MaterialPropertyBlock to draw trees; all of them use the same material, but each tree has different color, scale & wind factor.

The block passed to Graphics.RenderMesh or Renderer.SetPropertyBlock is copied, so the most efficient way of using it is to create one block and reuse it for all DrawMesh calls. Use SetFloat, SetVector, SetColor, SetMatrix, SetTexture, SetBuffer to add or replace values.

Note that this is not compatible with SRP Batcher. Using this in the Universal Render Pipeline (URP), High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) or a custom render pipeline based on the Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP) will likely result in a drop in performance.

The following example creates 10 GameObjects with random colors using MaterialPropertyBlock. To use the example, attach a prefab to the myPrefab property.

Additional resources: Graphics.RenderMesh, Material.

using UnityEngine;

public class CreateTenGameObjects : MonoBehaviour
{
    public GameObject myPrefab;

    void Start()
    {
        // Loop through 10 GameObjects
        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
        {
            // Instantiate a new GameObject at a unique position
            GameObject newObject = Instantiate(myPrefab, new Vector3(i * 2f, 0, 0), Quaternion.identity);

            // Create a new MaterialPropertyBlock
            MaterialPropertyBlock propertyBlock = new MaterialPropertyBlock();

            // Set a random color in the MaterialPropertyBlock
            propertyBlock.SetColor("_Color", Random.ColorHSV());

            // Apply the MaterialPropertyBlock to the GameObject
            newObject.GetComponent<MeshRenderer>().SetPropertyBlock(propertyBlock);
        }
    }
}

Properties

Public Methods