Hi - I have been working for a long time to generate a rendered animation in SolidWorks of a series of parts being packed into shipping containers.

I anticipated that the hard part of this project would be to get the animation and camera views correct, so I focused my efforts there.  Now that I have spent days getting the motion (component motion and camera views set up), I have set my attention to the rendering.  In SolidWorks I have now modified the parts for materials, finishes, colours etc.  The problem - WHEN I VIEW THE SIMULATION OF THE ASSEMBLY, NONE OF THE APPEARANCES HAVE CHANGED.   The appearances are all still of the original materials, and nothing is modified.  I can't figure out why this is.  The parts/assemblies have all appearances modified in SolidWorks only, but not the Motion Study.

Another (maybe related?? ) issue, when I was setting up my camera views in the Motion Study I noticed another unexpected behavior.  In the Motion Study tab, I would set up my camera to follow a sketch path.  After viewing the animation, I would want to make changes to the sketch path (to change the camera view).  I clicked the model tab SolidWorks and made the change to the sketch, then when would I click back on the Motion Study tab.  The sketch would remain unchanged.  I could not find 'where' or 'when' the modified sketch was in the simulation.  In Solidworks, if I modified the sketch - cut it out and pasted it back on the same plane, then the result carried over to the motion study.

I think both issues are related - but I CAN NOT figure it out.  What am I missing?  Is it a bug?  Is there a 'regenerate' function in the motion study?  If I duplicate the motion study, the motion study is duplicated that reflects the incorrect appearances - it does not add 'fresh' copies of the parts for the new simulation. Thanks in advance for any help.

I am using SolidWorks 2012 SP4