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I'm trying to assign a material to faces I've selected in Edit mode. To my knowledge, it's supposed to work this way:

  1. Select the faces
  2. Switch to material tab
  3. Select desired material in list of materials
  4. Click "assign" to assign the materials to the selected faces

However, when I select the material I want to assign to the faces, it automatically assigns it to every face on the object. What am I doing wrong?

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  • $\begingroup$ Although Blender shows objects as having a white default surface even without any material on them, as soon as you give them a material this becomes the default material for all faces. And in this case it's not possible to assign this single material to a selection of faces and let the others be "blank", without any material. So in order to have some faces with a different material than others, you need at least two materials on your object. See Marty's answer for an example. $\endgroup$
    – Gordon Brinkmann
    May 3, 2022 at 7:31

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Your technique is correct as far as it goes, but there's a bit more to it. Here is a screenshot of the material slots for a monkey:

Material slots screenshot

I've placed a material called "base material" in the first slot, (numbered zero.) I've placed another called "assignable material" in the second slot, (numbered one.) By default, every face on the material is assigned to the material in slot 0. In order to assign materials to faces, there must be a different material in at least one of the other slots. So, if you select slot 1 in my example, you can use your process to assign faces to it.

You can then change your mind about specific faces and assign them back to slot 0, of course.

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    $\begingroup$ It worked when I came back to it today. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was, but it is working now. The thing that was happening was that when I clicked on the second material, it set every face to that material before I could click "Assign". $\endgroup$
    – 3QuartersColon
    May 3, 2022 at 12:49
  • $\begingroup$ @3QuartersColon it sounds like you ran into a bug. I'm glad it was temporary. $\endgroup$
    – Marty Fouts
    May 3, 2022 at 14:51

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