I've created a DS material (.dsb) and I've realised that I can make it apply to ALL materials in the selected object if I right-click the icon for the script, select 'Open in DAZ Script IDE...', scroll down to the last function in the file 'DsActions.prototype.setMaterialProperties()', and within the 'switch(sID)' statement move the material data from the 'case "materialname":' to the 'default:', not forgetting to delete  delete the 'case "materialname":' afterwards. I can copy the edited text and save the result as a .dsa file.

Two questions:

1. Is this (i.e. putting the material setup in the 'default') the best way to do it?

2. How do I convert the resultant .dsa back to a .dsb?

TIA

(posted the same question for P6 in the Poser forum)

What you are doing is pretty much creating a shader preset - those, by default, apply only to selected surfaces though you can override that by holding down the cmd(Mac)/ctrl(Win) key when launching the preset. You should have .dsb as a format otpion in the Save as dialogue (and .dse, encrypted files that non-one can read (including you, so don't ever do this to a working file - but if you have custom code you want to keep to yourself you can save a distribution file as .dse).

Thanks Richard, using a shader preset instead seems to do the trick. And since there's no need to edit the script I can save it straight off as a binary.

For some reason I'd got it into my head that 'materials' used image maps, but shaders were procedural. So what exactly is the distiction between shaders and materials then?

A material preset is tied to a particular material zone(s) on a particular object, while a shader can be applied to any material zone on any object.  Both can be image-based, procedural, or a combination.

Thanks, it's all beginning to make some sort of sense now.

Just released a new set of textures, and I've included separate material presets for a specific model, and shader presets for other models as advised here. Hopefully I've got it right now!