Is this a bug? Empty material references some textures

Development Asset Creation
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10

It’s not a bug. Material Instances in Unreal keep references to textures even if removed parameters with those textures. It’s intended behavior - you don’t want Unreal to “forget” your parameter values (textures, scalars, vectors, bools) when you temporary delete some parameters from the material for debug/test. But yes, the downside - it keeps references, therefore loads more textures than needed.
The solution is simple:

  1. Open Material Instance
  2. Remove parent material (that will clean Material Instance)
  3. Save Material Instance
  4. Press Ctrl+Z to restore previous parameters
  5. Save Material Instance Again
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