Materials & Apperances

[NachoShaw]

Hi

I dont think the Materials & Appearances will ever work properly.....

Summary

I have 1 ADSKLIB files that holds both material & appearances

i have my textures folder set in my Application Options and my materials & appearance look there for the images

Material first

I edit my material, select my image, browse to teh image in my textures folder and everything looks ok. I click apply then close the editor. I re-open the material and nothing has updated. the image is no longer there and the color has set back to the default...

Appearances

I have 4 MDF material types MDF, MDF Laminated, MDF Veneered & MDF Painted. All materials should share the same image and trhe only real difference is the name HOWEVER... The appearance library creates this

Whats more frustrating is, i cant even delete them........

Whats the deal? Why doesnt this work?

Is it possible to

Add or edit a material, and assign one of the appearances from the library instead of the materials & appearances being completely independent? surely it would make more sense to create your appearance in the appearance library then assign that appearance to a material?

i wont even get started on the 1" wide material & appearance dropdown widths that sometimes are justified left & sometimes justified right for no reason whatsoever......

Thanks

Nacho

[Anonymous]

Take 20 minutes and waych this....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE1-ER3uYQk

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! What Inventor release are you on? The behavior sounds like the styles are corrupted. Are you trying to build a custom library? You may want to close Inventor. Go to File Explorer -> %temp% -> delete all files.

Is the custom library read only? Or, someone can add new styles or overwrite old styles easily?

Many thanks!

[NachoShaw]

Hi Johnson

I'm now on 2019. Its a new custom library I have created and added materials we use from the main Autodesk and inventor libraries. The images for the materials and appearances are all in the textures folder which is on our network and set up through application settings.

Thanks 

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Nacho,

The material and appearance library workflows work better with absolute path. I suspect the custom styles cannot find the texture files. You can edit the style and see if there is a warning sign. Then select the texture file manually to make sure the texture is linked. Then the thumbnails will be shown correctly. Lastly, copy the repaired styles back to the library.

Many thanks!

[blandb]

@NachoShaw

Just checking to see if you added the custom material library to the project file under materials and appearances.

[NachoShaw]

Hi Johnson

Yes when I clicked the material, there was an error so I fixed it with an absolute path. Saved then closed. Sometimes the images get lost, sometimes they stay. In this instance (the matetial), the images are there, I remove it and add a color, save and close it only to find that the changes I have made are not saved.

For appearances, I have not option to delete the ones I dont need

 They are not used by any material or anything in the document, I just cant delete them

[NachoShaw]

Hi BlandB

I created a new material library in the material editor and then added that library to the appearances editor

Thanks

[NachoShaw]

Incredibly frustrating.......

i have been very thorough in selecting what materials & appearances i wanted in my new library. Here is the very frustrating thing-

i have 4 types of materials

1/4in Plywood - unfinished

1/2in Plywood - unfinished

3/4in Plywood - unfinished

1in Plywood - unfinished.

all materials use the same appearance (Plywood - unfinished). I did this specifically as i edited first then added them to the library. When i then went back to the appearance library, i had a bunch of NEW appearances

Plywood - unfinished(1)

Plywood - unfinished(2)

Plywood - unfinished(3)

Plywood - unfinished(4)

these did not exist before. When i go back to my materials, they are all looking at the Plywood - unfinished appearance so why do i get these? furthermore, how do i remove them from my main appearance styles library? I get that you need to edit a material / appearance in an document then overwrite but what about just removing them? There isnt an option for that.... It seems that once its in your library, its there forever......

[NachoShaw]

ok, have it figured for anyone who dares to try and the same thing

open a new part document

open the libraries that you want to get your materials from

open or create the library you want the materials to be added to

Create your materials first (in the document)

drag / copy the materials you want into the open part document

edit them in the part then copy to your library

if you copy a material from another library, the appearance will also copy

if you duplicate a material, the appearance will be duplicated

edit all of your materials and make sure they are using the appearance you want, not the duplicated one

you can use the asset editor to select the correct appearance

once all of your materials are using the correct appearance, you can then delete the duplicated appearances.

in my case, i duplicated and then renamed my plywood materials. That created new appearances 1 to 4. i had to go back to the materials editor

drag the materials to the current document

edit the appearance and select the Plywood - unfinished from the asset editor

apply & close each material & close the editor

open the appearance editor

delete the unwanted appearances

save & close

complicated..

Side note, if you want to use an appearance for a cut out, you cannot choose an asset appearance, you will need a new appearance for each cutout. At least, i could not find a way of selecting an asset appearance..

Thanks

[blandb]

I am not sure if you have done this already, but just duplicate the default library appearance and material you want, then call it what you want, say,  "My new plywood" material with its physical properties, then create "my company plywood" appearance. This way they are disassociated with the default appearances, they are now your own. Then add these to your custom libraries. 

Now when you have these materials and appearances in your own custom library, and this library has been added to your project and set as the default material and appearances to be used in the project. When you create a new part and you go to choose a material such as "My new plywood" it will automatically set the appearance to "my company plywood" appearance (if you set the material to use that appearance that is). 

In the past if you adjust a material or appearance, you would automatically get ....(1) as it is an alteration of said material or appearance. That is why i just duplicate what I want from the beginning. Call it what I want, and set what I want.

Even if I was going to do a 1045 HR, I would create a material with that name and physical properties. Then also create an appearance with the same name for that material to use. Overkill... maybe, but no issues.

Hope that helps.

[Frederick_Law]

The appearance material work flow is not straight forward and the interface doesn't help.

When you copy a material, it'll create new appearance and physical properties.  With  1 2 3 in the name.

The easiest way to 'copy' is add the material to document.  Rename it.  Save it back to library.

[NachoShaw]

Hi 

Yes i had copied the material from the original library to the active document the saved it to the new library. Even when duplicating in the document that already has the appearance, it still duplicated the appearance also.

[Frederick_Law]

Start with an empty document.

Set material to Default.

Delete and Purge all style.

So it only has Default material and default color.

Bring one material into the document.

You will not have any duplicate.

Rename it to material you want.  Do Not Copy!

Change material and appearance.  Save it to your custom library overwriting old one.

Repeat until you get everything done.

Never ever copy material.

Rename one and change it so it won't create duplicate physical and appearance.

Its a long tedious task.  I think I did that on IV2012.

Converted old materials and sheet metal style.

Use a empty template with no material or make sure all material is sync to library.

So you don't get the style error.

[blandb]

Duplicating a material is not a WRONG thing to do. This work perfectly fine.

Duplicate a material and give it the name you want as shown below:

Edit the duplicated material and go to Appearance Tab> Information> and set the name of the Appearance you want:

When you save, and choose your new material, the appearance has also been renamed as well and you don't have blah blah blah(1). Simple and easy.

Telling someone to NEVER duplicate is like telling someone to NEVER rename model parameters. There are multiple ways to accomplish tasks in the software.

[Frederick_Law]

Usually when a user want to duplicate a material, they expect a new name with same property and appearance.

Not new material, new property and new appearance.

That's why user got confused with all the duplicated styles.

Of course user can rename them but that's not what they want.

Also now you have a 'New Gold' physical property.

So when I make 304 2B, 304 4B, 304 L, 304 I'll have 4 new physical and 4 new appearance?

You have shown why user don't want to duplicate 

Renaming the material will make new material with same property and appearance.

So if a user want this, NEVER use copy or duplicate because it will not have the 'correct' result.

I could be complete wrong on what the user/op want to do

[blandb]

I was coming from how to create new materials and have independent appearance for each material. Some may want to have a different appearance for each material, where others want to have the same appearance for multiple materials.

Just renaming will work fine for what you are explaining, IF they add that material to the custom library first before renaming again. I was doing a mass material creation, and then add them all at the end. Different work flow.

If you duplicate, you can change your materials to a common appearance by using the asset browser while editing your material to set the appearance such as "Semi-polished". Duplicating is essentially a copy of the same material with a xxx(1) for appearance, but the asset browser eliminates that.

Once you add your materials to the custom library you can close the file without saving and the other appearances no long matter.

All the same, different approach.