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Use a custom appearance as default for a material.

Question asked by Christopher Mueller on Apr 24, 2009
Latest reply on Nov 29, 2009 by Christoph Hennig

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I have created a custom appearance for "extruded aluminium" which appears in a light blue folder in the appearances/photoworks task pane. I'd like to use this appearance as a default for one of our materials, "6063 aluminium". Can this be done? I think I know the answer.... Any Ideas for workarounds if it cannot be easily done?

Christopher Mueller Apr 30, 2009 12:12 PM

Correct Answer

And the answer is:

You need to manually edit the materials database (preferably your company's and not the one installed with SW). Find the line that specifies the path to the appearance and replace that text with the full path to the appearance file. In our case the XML entry now looks (almost) like this

_/physicalproperties-_shaders-_pwshader2 name="matte aluminum" path="S:\Appearances\extruded aluminium.p2m"/-

In the above text I had to replace the less than symbol with "_" and the greater than symbol with "-" because they didn't play nice with the html.

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Anna Wood Apr 24, 2009 2:10 PM

Christopher,

It can be done.... There is a post somewhere on this forum that Rob Rodriquez and I have a discussion on this. I am assuming that Custom Appearances work this way also.

See attached.....

Cheers,

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Christopher Mueller @ Anna Wood on Apr 27, 2009 5:22 AM

Anna,
I tried setting the default appearance using the RMB on "Set as default appearance" in the task pane. I coldn't see any effect from this action though.

I dug through the help and, as usual, didn't get any help. But then I checked the knowledge base and found some more info on that function:

Question: After changing the default PhotoWorkstm / RealView appearance using "Set as default appearance" in the Task Pane, why do new parts still have the "default plastic" appearance?

Answer: This is because an appearance is also stored in the part template. Whenever all appearances are removed from a part, the default appearance will be added, because all parts must have an appearance. This default appearance is controlled with the "Set as default" command.

If you find that forum topic, it would be useful to look at; I did do a search before I posted the question and didn't find any similar questions.

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Anna Wood @ Christopher Mueller on Apr 27, 2009 5:36 AM

Christopher,

Here is the thread....

http://forum.solidworks.com/fo...d=15875&enterthread=y

Cheers,

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Christopher Mueller Apr 30, 2009 12:12 PM

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Christoph Hennig @ Christopher Mueller on Nov 29, 2009 7:40 PM

Hello Christopher,

if i change the path in the custom materialdatabase i got some problems in PW, because everything is black. the surface tab and the illumination tab is gone. the path to the p2mfile is correct in pw, but what happend to the surface and illumination tab? i just copied the polished steel.p2m file to my external harddisk. than i changed the path in the custom materialdatabase normally it is path="\metal\steel\polished steel.p2m", so i changed to path="G:\pw-test\polished steel.p2m" what is my problem? can you explain?

even if i copy all jpgs from the original textures folder to my external harddisk and change all path in the database in ms excel it is not working.

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5 Replies

Anna Wood Apr 24, 2009 2:10 PM
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Correct Answer
Christopher,

It can be done.... There is a post somewhere on this forum that Rob Rodriquez and I have a discussion on this. I am assuming that Custom Appearances work this way also.

See attached.....

Cheers,
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- Christopher Mueller @ Anna Wood on Apr 27, 2009 5:22 AM
  Mark Correct
  Correct Answer
  Anna,
  I tried setting the default appearance using the RMB on "Set as default appearance" in the task pane. I coldn't see any effect from this action though.
  
  I dug through the help and, as usual, didn't get any help. But then I checked the knowledge base and found some more info on that function:
  
  Question: After changing the default PhotoWorkstm / RealView appearance using "Set as default appearance" in the Task Pane, why do new parts still have the "default plastic" appearance?
  
  Answer: This is because an appearance is also stored in the part template. Whenever all appearances are removed from a part, the default appearance will be added, because all parts must have an appearance. This default appearance is controlled with the "Set as default" command.
  
  If you find that forum topic, it would be useful to look at; I did do a search before I posted the question and didn't find any similar questions.
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  - Anna Wood @ Christopher Mueller on Apr 27, 2009 5:36 AM
    Mark Correct
    Correct Answer
    Christopher,
    
    Here is the thread....
    
    http://forum.solidworks.com/fo...d=15875&enterthread=y
    
    Cheers,
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Christopher Mueller Apr 30, 2009 12:12 PM
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Correct Answer
And the answer is:

You need to manually edit the materials database (preferably your company's and not the one installed with SW). Find the line that specifies the path to the appearance and replace that text with the full path to the appearance file. In our case the XML entry now looks (almost) like this

_/physicalproperties-_shaders-_pwshader2 name="matte aluminum" path="S:\Appearances\extruded aluminium.p2m"/-

In the above text I had to replace the less than symbol with "_" and the greater than symbol with "-" because they didn't play nice with the html.
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- Christoph Hennig @ Christopher Mueller on Nov 29, 2009 7:40 PM
  Mark Correct
  Correct Answer
  Hello Christopher,
  
  if i change the path in the custom materialdatabase i got some problems in PW, because everything is black. the surface tab and the illumination tab is gone. the path to the p2mfile is correct in pw, but what happend to the surface and illumination tab? i just copied the polished steel.p2m file to my external harddisk. than i changed the path in the custom materialdatabase normally it is path="\metal\steel\polished steel.p2m", so i changed to path="G:\pw-test\polished steel.p2m" what is my problem? can you explain?
  even if i copy all jpgs from the original textures folder to my external harddisk and change all path in the database in ms excel it is not working.
  Like • Show 0 Likes0
  Actions

Use a custom appearance as default for a material.

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