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

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

3. 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…

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

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

15. 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

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

17. 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

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

19. 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

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

21. 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

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

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

24. 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

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

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

27. 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

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

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

30. 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

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

32. 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

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

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

35. 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

36. 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

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

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

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

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

41. 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

42. 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

43. 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

44. 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

45. 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

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

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