Material selection problem - Inventor assembly import

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

I've modelled up an interior apartment scene as an Inventor assembly with the a view to trying some rendering out on 3DS Max/Vray as Showcase just isn't realistic enough. I'm fairly savvy with Inventor, but very much a novice (at the moment) when it comes to Max. 

There are a few issues when I import but the main one I am struggling with, is assigning materials. At first, 1 material would be applied to everything in the scene but after reading some posts in the forums, I now know I can "ungroup" and apply individual materials this way. Perfect I thought...

.. BUT I'm still struggling to apply different materials to the actual room, i.e the walls, window glass, window frames, ceiling as I have modelled these as just a single object in inventor, not an assembly, so it isn't possible to "ungroup". I want to add a feature wall and dark wood window frames for example, but I can't because it selects all the features of the room. Is there anyway round this?? Maybe a way of selecting patches and applying materials to an individual patch??

Apologies if this is a stupid question or has been covered before, I have looked through the forums but couldn't find anyone with this specific problem when importing an inventor model. Also, I currently have only basic knowledge of Max and Vray so not sure where to begin.

[Anonymous]

I'm running Inventor 2014 and 3DS Max 2015 by the way!

[PROH · Accepted solution]

Hi. You need to give each part of the object a different material ID and then apply a Multi/Sub-object material, containing all the different materials.

You assign different material IDs in the editor roll out (right side of display). Activate "poly" (sub-object level), scroll down to "surface properties", select the polys and assign material IDs.

Each ID should correspond with the material IDs in the Multi/Sub-object material, ie 1 for Wall paint, 2 for Window framing, 3 for Glass etc. etc.

Hope it helps

[Anonymous]

Thanks PROH, that has sorted it! Appreciate the help 🙂