I was wondering if anyone else has noticed the fact that when looking at the list of applied appearances in the display manager, any materials which have been applied to sub assembles (at component level for that particular sub assembly) don't show . As in, the materials display correctly in the graphics window, but aren't listed along with all the other appearances.
This makes it tricky when trying to work our which is the 'dominant' material... or why a material looks as it does, when the material you're looking at on screen isn't shown in the list.
Also, not sure if this is a recognised bug, but there is a tendency for rogue 'grey' materials to be applied at component level, both on the main assembly and also sub assemblies, which need to be deleted to allow the proper materials to show through.
Does any of this make sense to anyone?
Thanks,
Tom
I've found a few things that you need to avoid if you want materials to behave in a dependable way. The worst thing is that if someone in your network has an assembly that uses a part that you're using, their assebly level materials can override your part level and assembly level materials. Save As on all externally facing parts so SW replaces them with new ones that you save with unique names to avoid this. After that go into your assembly and delete all the materials you can see. Then open up all the externally facing parts individually and delete any remaining materials, and then apply materials at part level only. You can apply different materials to different faces within a part, but applying materials at the assembly level isnt dependable.
If you're in a hurry you may get it to work, but if you want to be able to consistently render something you have to apply materials at part level only.