About to update Inventor and want to keep my material library!

[jgjYRRKE]

Hi all.

How do I keep my 100+ custom materials from the Inventor material library when my company updates from 2022 to 2024 version of Inventor?

Last update wiped them all 😞

Can I export/Import them some way?

It takes forever to recreate all of them.

[CCarreiras]

Hi!

You can import/load your custom material (and appearance) libraries.

Search in your pc for the file "yourlibraryName".adsklib and open it.

[jgjYRRKE]

What if they are under Favorites?

[CCarreiras]

The "favourites" is only a filter to your entire library.

If you didn't format the pc, (or delete some folders) it should be somewhere in your pc,

Probably here:

Find your old library and carry it to new version folder.

Always make a backup if you are substituting files with the same name. I would give a different name for this library,,, as "my_library" or similar.

Regarding the favourites status, probably you will have to set the materials you like as favourites again.

[jgjYRRKE]

Nevermind keeping the materials.

Inventor ****ed all of them up anyway.

Same as the last 2 updates. 😞

Gotta go through all custom materials and check/adjust Transparency, Image fade etc.  ON ALL custom materials!

Even the Document Apearances overview looks wrong.

Yellow hose material shows as grey. stuff like that.

Cant believe this is year 2024 to be honest.

Thats a FAIL Autodesk.

Thx for trying to help guys ❤️

[johan.degreef]

Those material libraries are a mess indeed 😞

[jgjYRRKE]

In 3DS Max you can export/import material libraries so easy.
That works great. All material parameters are as you made them.

Something like that would be nice in Inventor.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! If possible, please share the custom appearance library with me johnson.shiue@autodesk.com. I would like to understand the behavior better. It should just work without any further action. Something seems wrong.

Many thanks!

[jgjYRRKE]

I dont have anything to share, Johnson.
But I can explain the problem.

My materials were saved in a lot of different .ipt files.
Every time I make a custom material I add it to Favorites in materials.

Anyway, after every update the material added to the different files in the vault have changed.
When I check out files and want to render I have to go through every custom material.

Some have changed from non-metallic to metallic.
The image fade is now 100% in stead of any custom number.
Same goes for other sliders.
The new Inventor version does not load the custom values.

That gives me some work, but I go through every matarial as I run across them.
Fix them and re-add them to Favorites.

[James_Willo]

Hi, I think you're saying that you saved all your custom appearances to favourites and then when you migrated, the appearances are still in favourites, but they've reverted to the default settings?

Do you still have an old version of inventor installed where the appearances work?
What I would do is create a new appearance library and drag and drop all the favourites ones into the new library. 

You can then import this library into 2024.
I would also do this going forward, you seem to be relying on the favourites library as your master, but it would be much safer to create an actual library for them. I'm not an expert on the favourites library so I'm not sure why it's doing what it's doing. 

[jgjYRRKE]

No sir, all the favorites are gone.

I can then find the materials by opening the .ipt files where I used the materials.
But even there, in the files from the vault, the materials does no longer have the original parameters.

Its like the new Inventor version "defaults" the material parameters.
Same thing happen when we upgraded from 2020 to 2022 version.

Custom materials change.

[James_Willo]

Is your project file referencing the default libraries installed with 2024, or your old release?
Does changing that reference to your old libraries make any difference?

[jgjYRRKE]

I am not sure how to check for that?
We have an external IT company handle the upgrade.

Can you tell me how to check?
Then I will try.

[James_Willo]

Hover over Inventor Material Library
In this example we can see it points to 2025 folder. 

This is only if you took them from the Inventor library though, the other ones are shared with other AUtodesk products and don't have a specific folder so I'm not sure if those ones get migrated when you install the new version. 

[jgjYRRKE]

Hmm.

It does not mention a version.

Maybe since we use the Vault?

[James_Willo]

I wonder if that 'InventorMaterialLibrary' is a custom library because it has a different icon from the top two. 
I'm not sure if that's exactly what it means though. I will try and find out. 

[SBix26]

Look in your Windows user profile under AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Inventor 202x\, where you'll find a file named FavoriteMaterials.adsklib.  I suspect this is where your favorites are stored.

I use the Favorites mainly as an easy transfer between different libraries when needed, not for permanently storing my custom materials & appearances. 

For each version of Inventor, I have a material/appearance library cleverly named "Sam's Library".  When adding a new version of Inventor, I simply copy that file to the new version's C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 202x\Design Data\Materials\ folder, where it's ready to go every time, without issue.

Seems to me that your upgrade service hasn't been as thorough as they should be.

Hope that helps,

---

Sam B

Inventor Pro 2025 | Windows 11 Home 23H2

[jgjYRRKE]

I am not finding that path.
Maybe you are right about the upgrade service.

But it is still strange that all custom materials, saved in the vault, reverts to default paramaters.

Anyway, I am using 3DS Max more and more instead of rendering in Inventor.

Thx for your input.

[jameshockney]

Sorry for the Necro on this but just to help anyone else.

Instead of dropping your new material into Favorites. Create your own library, click that little chequered circle with a plus. and make a New library. If there are multiple of you using it save it to a network location so that everyone can access it. Then add the library to your project file as shown above.

When you create a new material in a part, drag the material into your new library then make sure to click the little pencil marker on the library so that others can add materials as required. 
I have a great many custom materials and this library just migrates along with the .ipt and .iam files into the next inventor version every time. + Being on our server means that it is backed up so if I bork it up I can restore an old one very easily.

[jgjYRRKE]

Thx for your input, James.

One problem seems to be, that all the images used in the materials goes to 100% in "Image Fade".
That messes with darkness, opacity etc.

Maybe your solution fixes that.