I have tried various hacks with the mt5 and mc6 files. Every time I remove a reference to a transparency Image_Map file, when Poser loads the file it over-writes what is there with "none" (or leaves the whole node out). So it then renders the hair without any transparency map. So I haven't yet found anything like that that works.

Nerd, I've been thinking about what you said. You're probably right that some new capability is probably needed in a future version of Poser, to indicate upon loading a mt5 or mc6 file whether unmentioned nodes should be deleted or kept in their prior condition. I think this would probably have to happen at the node level, not the material level; many prop-style hair objects have only one material-- but it has texture map and transparency map, and maybe even bump map and specular map.

However, I had an idea about how to address your second consideration: indicating what parts to replace, and what parts to leave alone. In Poser 12, when a user wants to add the current settings to a Materials folder and he/she clicks on the plus sign at the bottom of the library window, a pop-up window for the New Material Set appears, as in the bottom right of the image below:

There is an option to save "Selected nodes only." If this check-box were replaced in some future version of Poser with a set of 3 radio buttons that went something like:

- All nodes

- Selected nodes, deleting omitted nodes

- Selected nodes, keeping existing information for nodes omitted from file

then that might be enough to indicate what nodes to replace, what nodes to leave alone. Something similar would have to be done for materials in a mc6 file.

If this is a pretty common request, then maybe there is a reasonable solution. I can hope, anyway.