RobynsVeil: that makes sense - it does ask "Apply selected nodes to all materials available to this object?". Another lesson for me - pay attention to what it actually says on the dialogues!

adh3d: thanks for the reply, but not quite what I'm after (my fault as usual , I didn't really make the problem clear in my first post! ) I want to save a single material from one object, and then be able to apply that material (with one click if possible) to every material in a second completely different object, i.e. one with completely different material names.

Now I know a bit more - if I can set up one material in the second object, the Material Room's 'Apply to all' will let me copy it to the other materials.

But I still have to set up that first material... any ideas?

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The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident.
And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU.

*also available in ShareCG, DAZ, and HiveWire3D flavours (the DeviantArt and CGBytes flavour have been discontinued).