Last week, I had a case where the customer reported a Permission denied: ‘MakeLocal’ when he tried to create hair. I suggested that the material was locked somehow, but he said that he got the same error even if he applied a new material.

// ERROR : 2132 - The object Sources.Materials.DefaultLib.Scene_Material1 is locked by an override.
// ERROR : 2009-PROP-SIMakeLocal - Access denied - [line 3527 in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack\Application\DSScripts\uixsiscripts.vbs]
// ERROR : Permission denied: 'MakeLocal' - [line 8779 in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack\Application\DSScripts\uixsiscripts.vbs]

After some back and forth, I got a scene file and found the problem. It was because of overrides on partitions. Even if you applied a different material, you would get the same “locked by an override” error that prevents MakeLocal.

The solution was simply to change to a different pass (one that didn’t have any overrides on the materials) and create the hair there.