Assigning material method - question.

I have a few problems when I assign materials which I think
I’ve solved but what to ask/hi-light some of the issues and understand if I
using a reasonable workflow as I might be a bit in the past with my methodology.

I start by assigning a base material to everything. In the
Material Editor I right click on the material, hit assign, and select any
object. Now I hit the plus and reveal the Level
name : Colour field. I can the just add a * so that material is on
everything. All good so far.

If I want a different material assigned to an individual
layer I do the same (In the Material Editor RC on the material, hit assign. Select
an element to assign a material onto it’s level)

Now in the assignment field I have Level name : 0  for example.
I have conditions what I want to apply a * to the colour value, essentially assigning
by level and the colour attribute is irrelevant.

If I add a * the material drops the whole assignment.  I think this might be a syntax error by me
but I just can’t get it to work.

I think it might a syntax error because I then used the
Assign Material tool/dialog and select only the material, not a colour, and it
automatically adds 0-255 into the field for me.

If I add 0-255 into the field in the Material Editor as I
was doing with the * again it fails and drops the assignment.

Interestingly I noticed that if I added 0-254 it worked.

So I can get this to work but this seemed odd and I wondered
why and if I misunderstanding something here. Any ideas?

Can someone confirm this is a reasonable method?

Also will this work in the same way with external MAT/PALs?
I’m currently running locally but plan to work external by editing the config.

Many thanks

Richard

Running - SS3 081109292