topic Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level... in Inventor Forum

Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Jun 2015 16:25:28 GMT

Unless I set the Appearance at the part level before I do any extrusions, I can't get my parts to show up in assemblies as they are at the part level without changing them at the assembly level also. Further, even when I do get them to show up properly in the first assembly, if I place that sub assembly in a master assembly, all of the parts get reset to whatever the appearance of the subassembly is set as in the master assembly. This gets really annoying 4 or 5 sub-assemblies deep, going through and individually changing all the parts every time. I'm using IV 14. Anyone know if there's a setting I can change so that appearances are... global, so to speak?

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

blair — Sun, 21 Jun 2015 02:01:58 GMT

You have two aspects, first is the color of the part at the part level. When you place a part in a IAM file, you can change the color of the parts at the Assembly Level. This only affects this Assembly and not the Part unless you enter the Part and edit at the part level. This allows you to have IAM files with different color while still using the same parts.

This is as designed, much the same as creating holes through parts with Assembly Features. These changes only reside at the IAM level and not back into the IPT part level.

There are no settings within Inventor to push color changes from the IAM level back down to the IPT level. This can be done with "Features" but no with color.

You could set up Templates for each Material and Color Type which would help when you are starting a new IPT. Simply select the appropriate Template to start your new part.

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 02:17:33 GMT

Thanks Blair. I guess what I'm asking is if there's a way to set my part's color, and force it to be that color for every assembly it is in. Including if the assembly it is in is placed into another larger assembly. It seems to be that if I set the color before the initial save or before I first place it in an assembly it works... but not always.

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

blair — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 04:31:05 GMT

Open the part, change the Appearance, save and close the part. Anytime you then use this part it will have the color/appearance that you have assigned to it.

It sounds like you are trying to change the appearance of the item while you are in the Assembly IAM file. You need to be careful, if you have any Over-Rides of Appearance in IAM Assembly files, you may need to clear any Appearance Overrides for the part base color to show up.

You have two parts to how a part looks. First is the Material and the second is the Appearance. Many mistake the Material for how an IPT looks. If you select "Steel" for your part, it will appear "Grey". The Material primarily controls the Physical Attributes of the part such as it's Mass and other physical attributes that are required for FEA. Appearance is just that, think of it as Paint. A IPT that has "Steel" as it material can have a "Paint" coat or Chrome coating. This won't affect it's Mass or how it reacts to Loads in FEA analysis.

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

Anonymous — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 21:23:23 GMT

The issue was that I didn't understand what it was asking when I got the pop up that asks if you'd like to remove associativity every time I would change visibility or appearance of a part. Using "Modify Design View Rep." fixed my issue. Thanks Blair.

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

ropicazo — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 14:49:20 GMT

I am running into a related issue. I have a part that was originally blue (left), if I open it and change the color at part level I can change it to red (right). However, it doesn't change at the assembly level. Only if I place this component again it updates the color, as in the picture below.

I have already overridden all appearance at assembly level with no luck. Do you have any advice? Thank you in advance!

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

kacper.suchomski — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 15:32:38 GMT

Indeed, I'm having trouble updating too. @James_Willo , can you take a look at this?

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

johnsonshiue — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 21:21:35 GMT

Hi! I am not able to reproduce the behavior. Please make sure all critical Windows updates are installed and the graphics driver is updated.

Many thanks!

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

James_Willo — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 07:08:31 GMT

I cannot reproduce this. Did you try clicking this button at the top and removing all overrides?

Or right click the design view and do 'remove appearance overrides.'

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

ropicazo — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:04:18 GMT

Thank you for the replies. I am more confused than ever because I tried with a new part and assembly, and it works! However, I cannot find what the issue is in my normal assembly. I have updated the driver of the graphics card and remove the overrides as suggested. I did a little video showing the problem, maybe you can find an obvious mistake in it?

In the video one can see that the color of the part is what was originally chosen (~cyan), and I can't seem to change it. I turn the part to red and it's not updated.

(view in My Videos)

Thank you in advance.

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

oewgc — Wed, 20 May 2026 08:07:40 GMT

We also frequently come across the issue shown in the video above. No 'Rebuild All', 'Clear Overrides' etc. will fix it. Even replacing the component with the exact same model doesn't work. Only when placing a new part does the correct appearance come through. This isn't an option as we frequently have large quantities of FEA data attached to the parts in the assembly model.

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

CGBenner — Wed, 20 May 2026 12:28:52 GMT

@oewgc

Is this something that happens on all parts in all assemblies, or is it unique to a few? If it is unique, could you share a sample dataset that does this? If it is all parts in all assemblies, what version of Inventor are you using (include updates)?

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

dan_inv09 — Wed, 20 May 2026 13:51:30 GMT

The post marked as the "accepted solution" talks about overrides in the assembly (the only reason that the OP was overriding things in assembly was because the assembly did not match the part file) the OPs solution turned out to be something that wasn't even mentioned there.

The part on the right is a derived mirror of the part on the left

the part that was in the assembly has decided that it wants to be another color. If I place copies they are okay.

It was months ago and I decided to just stop trying to fight it, but I wanted you to know that it is not just one person's dataset and the Inventor version and updates. This post was started 11 years ago - you can not blame this on someone not being on the correct update of the current version of Inventor!

Re: Changing appearance at part level does not change at assembly level...

johnsonshiue — Thu, 21 May 2026 00:29:08 GMT

Hi @oewgc,

The coloring behavior captured in the video does not look right to me. If possible, please share the files that exhibit the behavior directly with me at johnson.shiue@autodesk.com. I would like to understand the behavior better.

Many thanks!