Thanks for the reply, Ryan. It definitely makes sense to keep usability and compile time in mind. But I’m still a bit confused about the performance aspect of it. If I get the answer in [this thread][1] and the [documentation about material instances][2] right, an instance only compiles as a separate material if I use a static parameter. For my texture/color switch I only use add and multiply nodes, like this:
So all instances I create of this material should be combined at compile-time and only use a single draw call, right? Leaving usability out of the equation for a moment, does that mean it’s better than using one material for textures and another for vector parameter colors?
I imagine it doesn’t matter much for very simple materials like above. But if the math nodes keep piling up, could the performance be increased by splitting it into separate materials to get rid of all the adds and multiplies?