[purCAB]

JD, I've broken this particular issue out of my prior post and into a separate topic so that we can continue to work on the file size issue in the prior post.

I am still unable to apply materials reliably in SW for anything other than solid bodies. Here is an example using SW 2007 and the Maxwell 1.6.0 plugin:

1) Create a very simple part (e.g. with the polygon tool create a hexagon) and extruded it.
2) Add the material PinkPolishedStone to the Materials Catalogue.
3) Enable Viewport Display.
4) Set Select Faces.
5) With the mouse, drag the PinkPolishedStone onto one of the faces of the part. The arrow with the "+" sign is shown.
6) There is no material application. Neither the viewport nor the Object Properties reflects any change.
7) Repeat the above process by using "Select Feature" and "Select Any". These both yield the same result. You can also try this by highlighting the face first and then try to apply the material. The result is the same whether one drags and drops the material or uses the Apply to Selected choice.
8) Now set "Select Bodies".
9 Highlight the part's solid body.
10) Now apply the material. This application is successful and is reflected in both the viewport and the Object Properties.

This behavior is the same in both 2007 and 2008.

I am unclear why I am having trouble applying material to anything other than a solid body. Additionally, I cannot seem to remove a material from the part without removing that material from the Materials Catalogue. That is, there is no remove from part/face/etc, only a remove from Catalogue.

Ken

[JDHill]

Hi Ken,

That's correct. If you look in the Log Viewer, you should see one of these:

* line 8: ApplyToSelected, _notify, material not applied to 1 face - parent body requires multi-material support to be enabled

for every time you unsuccessfully tried to apply a Material to a Face. This is because, as noted in my WIP How-To topic ( http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... hp?t=26261 ) :

- moving forward, let's now activate the 'Select Faces' filter and apply a different Material to the top Face of Part1's Body
- select the top Face
- drag-drop a different Material over the Face


When you drop the Material, nothing happens. Why??? By default, it is only possible to apply Materials to Components and Bodies.

As indicated, you need to enable multi-Material support for this Body. This is one of the important optimizations in this plugin - if Face/Feature Materials are allowed by default, it makes it necessary to search every single Face/Feature during object-selection and also during mesh-export - and as you can learn by enabling it for a few many-Faced Bodies, this can mean significant slow-downs in performance. So, when you know this, and you still want to apply to Faces/Features:

- select the Body
- in Object Properties, toggle-on the 'Enable multi-Material support for this Body'

As far as removing Materials, you can also remove them from the entity they were applied to using the 'Remove Material' button in the Object Properties window. However, since the plugin allows assignment at Face, Feature, Body, or Component levels, it is necessary that you have the entity selected which has the Material applied. That is, you cannot remove the Material of a Body when you only have one of its Faces selected - you need to select the Body...then the 'Remove Material' button will be shown. If the selected Face also had a Material applied, then the 'Remove Material' button would be shown when just that Face was selected.