Links/textures files change check
blender does not check if the texture changed.
It is really a pain to every time when texture link is changed - overwriten that I need to link different picture and than back the original replaced picture... to get the updated version... (it is even that bad that chosing the same picture does not update it in render preview... (at least in view port it now works to just link the same picture again... but few years ago i thing it did not work there either...) Because blender do remember that it is the same picture file)
At least add refresh button to shader editor image node to refresh the texture in one click...
But better would be if blender would be checking textures if they changed like other softwares do. And make some info popup "would you like to update these textures". Right now when more textures are replaced I am restarting blender to update it... anoying...
2 Comments
Auto Reloader extension (free) solved this issue for me once and for all.
You do have the refresh button in the sidebar:
I understand why it's not on the node itself, it would create inconsistency with all the other data-block pickers that are not external files (e.g. material picker), and it's already cluttered enough x)
Node Wrangler have operators (and keyboard shortcuts, and GUI) to reload images for the whole file:
I reckon it would be nice to also have it in the Right 🖱️ contextual menu.
And you can always save and revert your file to force reload "everything".
I suspect Blender doesn't always auto-reload images to avoid performance issues, as constantly checking for file changes can slow down large scenes. I believe textures in materials are also cached for rendering performance, so that might add to the cost of permanently watching for changes and automatically reloading.
Maybe a compromise could be an option to automatically reload some data blocks (we could have different consideration for images, videos, image sequences). And indicate a specific checking interval, with a default value that's high enough to pickup the slack but not damaging for modest systems.