In the explorer, you can view materials in two different contexts: you can see all of the scene's material libraries by setting the explorer's scope to Materials or you can see individual materials in the hierarchies of the objects to which they're applied. In either context, each material's name and icon provide useful information about the material itself.
When viewed in an object's hierarchy:
A material's name appears as materialname[libraryname]. For example, this material...
If the material is inherited rather than locally assigned, its name is italicized and the name of the material's source appears in parentheses. For example, this object...
...has inherited the "im_blotch" material, which is part of the "flesh" library, from the "sphere15" object.
If the material is assigned to an object in branch mode and propagated to the object's children, the material's icon is marked with a B.
When viewed in the material library hierarchy:
Materials are displayed as children of the libraries to which they belong. Only the material names appear.
If a material is not assigned to any objects, "Not Used" appears in angle-brackets next to the material's name.
In both the material library hierarchy and the object hierarchy:
A material's icon indicates whether the material is assigned to one object, more than one object, or no objects at all.
