Just to clarify, if I’m not changing any of the values other than material parameters to swap out the albedo, normal, RMAO etc. then an instance isn’t any cheaper. IE for character materials.
It’s only cheaper when the materials are sharing calculations - For example a flag material with panners and textures feeding into a world position offset to simulate wind - The initial cost is calculating the first flag’s math but every material instance that simply changes a color parameter will incur a slight cost for the color change but will get a free ride for the math that’s handling the world position offset?