How to create a new material appearance color simply?

[pachubby]

Hi

I know the material-appearance feature is appalling and badly implemented, but I can not wait until SP1, so can someone give me a simple method of adding new colors to Inventor.  I have looked through the wiki help and there is no simple explanation.

In our company the way we generally work with Inventor is to assign certain colors to parts and sub-assemblies, thus making it easier to build the final assembly.  In previous versions of Inventor this was easily done.  In 2013 some of the bold (primary) colors are missing and almost all of the various shades of these colors are also missing.

Migrating files across to 2013 has also caused problems with the color appearance not updating correctly.  I won't go into the details but the problems and niggles aren't consistent, and there doesn't seem a way to clean/refresh the document library.

What I want is about a dozen bold colours (with a matte finish so when editing the part you do not have to overcome the optical illusion of starring into a morphed mirrored image of a carpark).

Thanks

[timdown73]

I don't have an easy answer to your main question, as I to am struggling with the materials in Inventor 2013, but  I do know that you can change the reflection image of all your materials to get rid of the stupid parking lot reflection in the "Application options" dialog.  You need to change the reflection environment option to Chrome.dds.  I  have attached an image that highlights the option.  I hope this helps you somewhat. 

[pachubby]

Hi Tim,

Yep I know how to change the reflection jpeg.  Thank you.

I was simply wanting to create a series of basic bold colors with a matte or dull finish to make it easier to quickly build large assemblies, i.e. it is easier to spot a colored part in the thumbnail image when browsing windows explorer.

[SBix26]

Open the Appearance Browser (color wheel to the left of the Appearance drop-down); at the bottom left, the right button is a pull-down menu of new appearance types to choose from; choose Generic; in the Appearance Editor, set the color you want and give it a useful name; add it to a writeable library.

The colors still don't look really bold, but that's a lighting issue-- you could play with lighting styles to make it look better.

[pachubby]

Ok, thanks for the instructions.  While waiting for replies I had found out how to add a new appearance (by the method you described actually).

BUT... (now a new problem) I created a new appearance under the 'Plastic' type (as opposed to selcting 'Generic') and added this to the Inventor Materials Library.  The next day I open Inventor and open a new part file, and the new appearance I created has a blank thumbnail... can you explain why?

Thanks