I've thought about this. It's an interesting question. For humans, the fact that any zone named "skin" (i.e. what it's made of) is useful - and makes the default rules (put Template Skin in skin) work great.

On the other hand, naming what it is, not what it's made of, has advantages for things like buildings, rooms.

I've been dabbling in constructing rooms, and I have a few Template shaders I use quite often. It's been very advantageous that I say "Living Room Wall" or "Kitchen Wall" versus "Paint" or "Plaster". If the wall is called "Plaster", how do I get VSS to know to use the Wall Template shader, which currently happens to be a green glass, because that is what I want walls to be made of?

How about an accent wall, where I want that to be a different color? Does it make sense to call it "Red Wall Paint" when I actually want it made of blue stucco? The name "Accent Wall" makes more sense for use with VSS.

But ultimately, the notion of rule-based shader assignments was just something I did for quick and dirty support of common figure material zone names. If I ever would get around to it, I'll make a drag and drop GUI for VSS. Then the names simply will not matter. You'll grab zones and make zone groups. Then you'll grab a material (shader) and drop it on a zone group. It will be so much easier.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)