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2013 Appearances- adding new colors in custom library

6 REPLIES 6
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Message 1 of 7
bl1droid
2902 Views, 6 Replies

2013 Appearances- adding new colors in custom library

First, I have not grasped the extent yet of how the new appearance library works.. we don't get crazy with colors, reflections etc.. but we do have a handful of colors that we use on the machines we use.. so instead of using the default appearance library, i made a new appearance library.  All this went well, but i periodically as i need them will add colors to it.. problem is that i'm obviously doing something wrong, because my colors don't always stay in there after i restart Inventor.. and yesterday, i can't seem to keep any of the colors i setup in there to stay.. all i want to do is copy specific colors from inventors appearance library.. drag them into mine, rename them, maybe tweak the color, and then they be there for next time.. why won't they stay?  The edit pencil will come up on my library.. i've done the release edit after i'm done.. everything works in this inventor session, but if i turn inventor off and back on again.. they are gone.. only thing i have thought of remaining is that 3 users on our network share the same design styles location so we all our using same stuff, so is the file inventor uses in design styles to save to read only or something, but i read that appearances aren't saved in design styles.. .  Can someone assist in how to do this and the colors stay and populate through all the existing stuff.. I have got the colors to lock into my template ipt in the doc appearances.. and i've done the save to custom library thing.. works until i restart inventor..

thanks,

Brian

6 REPLIES 6
Message 2 of 7
4donwan4
in reply to: bl1droid

I am not sure what might be going on here with your situation but here are some youtube videos that might help figure out what is going wrong, not sure if they will?
AutoDesk Material Libraries videos
Migrating Material Styles to Autodesk Inventor 2013 from Previous Versions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDcxvXZq1aQ
Migrating Inventor Styles to Material and Appearance Libraries:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKKZMNa0EjU
Migrating Custom Drafting Style to Inventor 2013:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyCkJIaP-F8
Inventor 2013 General Enhancements:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCjR6HhEhn4

Don

Message 3 of 7
bl1droid
in reply to: 4donwan4

I appreciate the response.. everything i seem to find involves migrating colors.. not looking to migrate.. just want to create a new color library based on existing colors in other 2013 autodesk libraries.. just trying to find the correct procedure for doing this..  do you do work on your library in the ipt template files and save them to that document.. that seems to do a better job of them actually being there next time, at least when you create a new part anyway.. Put it this way.. i'm using an appearance library that i created new.. only has about 10 colors in it.. i'm designing one day and decide that I need a new color in that library... so i open up the appearance browser in that assembly i'm working on.. select autodesk appearance library.. surf the colors and find the color that is what i want... drag it into my appearance library that is in there, rename it.. now i would like that new color to populate back through all files i open.. sometimes this method works.. sometimes it the new color only stays until i restart inventor..  So i was looking for the correct way to do this seemingly simple task that i've been able to do since R1 without this much headache..

thanks for the help,

Brian

Message 4 of 7
blair
in reply to: bl1droid

The Materials and Appearance Libraries are now part of the Styles and can be stored in a common location for everyone to use if so inclined.

 

There are two parts the Materials portion which contains the physical properties for each material. Density, yield, tensile and thermal properties which are used in FEA and Simulation.

 

The Appearance is only the finish of an item: Steel, the default is grey, but you can change the appearance to Red, or Yellow, Chrome...

 

There are no physical properties in the Appearance Library. This way if you change the appearance of an item to brushed aluminum, if the physical properties are Steel, the mass of the object will still be that of a steel object.

 

The best would be to create a "New User Library" with the modified Appearances and store it within everyones network path.


Inventor 2020, In-Cad, Simulation Mechanical

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Message 5 of 7
bl1droid
in reply to: blair

Blair.. thanks for the response.. but obviously i'm not communicating a clear question.. everything you said i am very clear with and as far back as i can remember we always had our design data, and templates stored on a common network location..  I have a new material library that i created in 2013, that everyone uses.. and I have a new appearance library that i created that everyone uses... both stored with our design data..styles, etc.  Question is... if i want to modify colors or add colors to my appearance library.. where and how do i do this so it updates my appearance library that everyone uses....do you just do it on the fly as your designing, whichever part your in?  Do you need to do it in your template and save it to its local doc colors?  I know that i can do it a number of different ways.. but i'm finding that not all ways are actually permanently updating my appearance library and I have not found for sure the correct method that works everytime ... yesterday i went into my template .ipt.. added 4 colors.. those colors were available to all my parts yesterday... today on booting up.. those colors are not in my drop down when i go to change a parts color..

 

Message 6 of 7
spence.greene
in reply to: bl1droid

I have the same problem. How do I add a new material to a network library? I have created the new material in the document, I have RMB the newly created material in the Document Materials pane and added it to my UserMaterialLibrary, (My .ipj is set to read-write, the user library.adsklib is not read only and I have read write access to that location on my network.) I then RMB on my user material library in the library pane of the Material Browser dialog box and Release Library (I assume this means to save the newly edited user library, or similar to update style library from pre 2013 releases,) yet my adsklib file does not update. To re-iterate, HOW DO YOU ADD A NEW MATERIAL TO AN EXISTING USER MATERIAL LIBRARY?

Message 7 of 7

This may be of Interest - http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/How-to-create-new-material-in-2013/td-p/3416529 Look at the suggestions by streharg starting around post/reply no. 7 regarding migrating before sp1.1.

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