ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Hosted by: Mark Lancaster [Product Support Specialist]

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Agenda for today What’s provided Library creation Defining appearances Defining materials Managing it

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Your thoughts? Never used it Not user friendly or it’s a mystery Never really got it to work Never the same Perhaps the list goes on…

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances What’s Provided Inventor Material Library Contains materials and appearances Used only in Inventor Location: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor <version>\Design Data\Materials Name: InventorMaterialLibrary.adsklib Global library Read/write access

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances What’s Provided Autodesk Material Library Contains materials and appearances Used across multiple Autodesk applications Location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials\<year version> Name: PhysicalMaterial.adsklib Global library Read only access

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances What’s Provided Autodesk Appearance Library Contains only appearances Used across multiple Autodesk applications Location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials\<year version> Name: assetlibrary_base.adsklib Global library Read only access

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Inventor Library - Appearances Default image library – Inventor– low resolution – 256x256

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Autodesk Library- Appearances Default image library – All applications – low resolution – 256x256 Based image library – All applications – medium resolution – 512 x 512 Medium image library – 3DS Max – high resolution – 1024 x 1024 Higher resolutions leads to larger files/possible performance issues

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Source Info or Document Controlled Document Controlled Materials and appearances in your opened document or document cache Source Info Information within the selected library

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Material and Appearance Browser Search field Document viewing filters Edited selected document material or appearance Library viewing filters Category Depth Toggle library Library tree All material & appearances in selected library Define new material or appearance in document

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Material and Appearance Browser Toggle library viewing pane Toggle library tree Double click or right mouse to edit Toggle library category Open existing, delete, or create new library Create or delete library category Access display units

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating your own library Method #1 Create a new Materials and Appearance library Define only those materials and appearances you require Copy to your new library Add new library to Inventor project file Method #2 Create a new Materials and Appearance library Copy over existing materials and appearances you require Define materials and appearances you require in a document Add new library to Inventor project file and disable Autodesk and Inventor Material library

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating your own library Method #3 Create a new Materials and Appearance library Create a new (separate) Appearance library Define appearances separately Define materials using the separate appearances Follow method #1 or #2. Method #4 Add to the Inventor material and appearance library

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating your own library (DEMO #1)

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Appearances Copy over/leave as Copy over/change its name Name: -MY METAL Copy over/change its settings Half or Scratch baked Copy/Create  Document

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Appearances – Part 1 (DEMO #2)

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Half Baked Way Appearance’s types or properties behaviors: How they’re handled under Visual Styles and defining the appearance editor interface 2019 Help - Appearance Editor

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Half Baked Way Metal Wall Paint Wood

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances Preview Appearance Preview: Represented based on shapes and/or lighting (light or dark) conditions NO IMPACT TO EDITOR SETTINGS

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances Information Appearance name Description (optional) Key woods (searching & optional) Separate keywords with comma

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Half Baked Way The actual steps Create a simple part Set Visual Style to Realistic Optional: Enable Ray Tracing Define settings Assign it to part Does it work? Adjust as needed Not always the same options

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Appearances – Part 2 (DEMO #3)

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Scratch Baked Method

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Scratch Baked Method Provide name/info Use an Autodesk provided image C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2019\Textures C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Materials\Textures Helpful tip: Appearance/Win Explorer Create method Google image Image must be repeatable Copy-right? Vault? Defining your settings

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Scratch Baked Method Examples of images that are repeatable on all sides

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Scratch Baked Method Examples of images that are non-repeatable on all sides

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Scratch Baked Method The actual steps Image Save location/Vault Create a 1in cube Set Visual Style to Realistic Optional: Enable Ray Tracing Determined covered length Define overall settings Adjust image settings Assign it to part Does it work? Adjust as needed

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Appearances – Part 3 (DEMO #4)

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Scratch Baked Method Bump – Your Appearance Bump settings gives depth to your appearance

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Appearances – Scratch Baked Method Cutouts – Your Appearance Use images like these to create floor grates, cages, screens and etc appearances on your model. Cutouts settings creates the appearance of looking through the dead space of the image

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Appearances – Part 4 (DEMO #5)

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Materials Copy over/leave as Copy over/change its name Name: -MY SST METAL Copy over/change its settings PERFERRED METHOD Ground level Copy/Create  Document

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Materials Important Non-Important

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Materials Define the appearance for this given material or use the replace asset method

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Materials – Replace Asset Replace asset icon Select library Locate appearance Right mouse click/replace in editor –or- Hover and select replace asset icon Selected appearance asset added to material definition

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Materials – Replace Asset When a replaced appearance asset is modified in its appearance library, the asset residing in the material definition will not automatically update to the modified appearance Use Manage Styles/Update workflow to update the material assigned appearance

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Materials Edit/define the required material properties -or- Replace the properties asset with another material definition

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Creating Materials (DEMO #6)

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Managing it… Is it ready for prime time?

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Managing it… Add document source info to your library…

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Managing it… Add library info to your active project file Recommended as READ-ONLY to protect your library standard info from being over-written

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Managing it – Not Matching Document cache compared to global library information Material and/or Appearances not matching? At part and/or assembly level, document cache information

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Managing it – Not Matching Appearance override entire part, faces, view reps, and etc. Appearances not matching? Appearance override – Denoted with an asterisk “*” Appearance override at assembly level

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Managing it – Not Matching Define new global definition Document cache to library Define new document definition Library to document cache

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Managing it – Not Matching Libraries are corrupted or improperly installed Appearance image or settings is missing or incorrect

ABC’s of Inventor Materials and Appearances Managing it Backup your custom material and appearance library Final Step!!!

Copy of presentation – send an email to Mark.Lancaster@Synergis.com Q&A Session Copy of presentation – send an email to Mark.Lancaster@Synergis.com