[mtripoli]

When applying an MXM to a sldprt the part changes to the color of the MXM (i.e. the MXM is blue plastic), sometimes not...

I tried just reassigning the MXM to the object; it was red and I make it blue - it doesn't change color in the SW window, but when I click on the body the Object Properties window shows the correct MXM.

I also tried removing the color and then assigning the new MXM; it doesn't change. I'm a bit perplexed by this; it was working on the "first go"...

[JDHill]

Are you working in an actual .sldprt? Are there materials assigned at the face or feature levels (if in a .sldasm, also the component-level)? If no Maxwell Materials, are there any normal SW colors assigned at those levels? If so, you will need to remove those overriding properties before you will see the color of what is applied to the body. The plugin will not assume just because you applied something at the body level, that you also mean to remove data specified at overriding levels - it will leave those colors alone.

If none of these are the case, please let me know the steps needed to reproduce the failure (if you can find any), because it should not be happening.

[mtripoli]

Hi JD,

When I assign materials I do it at the sldprt level on the individual part so that at a later time if I want to change anything I can do it easily.

When I know I'll render the part with Maxwell I do not assign any SW materials, colors, etc. I've gone through and made sure that no SW materials are assigned (just in case). The part in question (actually I have the same part saved as different names with different colors) shows on the screen as white. As I said, if I select it the object properties it shows the correct material (shiny blue plastic, shiny red plastic, etc.) but the part shows as white on the screen. At one time the part did show correctly on the screen. In the assembly the mating part shows as blue (correctly). When I render, though the part shows as white in the SW window it renders correctly.

I can send the part to you. I'd rather send it directly as opposed to posting it.

Thanks for your help.

[mtripoli]

Hi JD,

When I assign materials I do it at the sldprt level on the individual part so that at a later time if I want to change anything I can do it easily.

When I know I'll render the part with Maxwell I do not assign any SW materials, colors, etc. I've gone through and made sure that no SW materials are assigned (just in case). The part in question (actually I have the same part saved as different names with different colors) shows on the screen as white. As I said, if I select it the object properties it shows the correct material (shiny blue plastic, shiny red plastic, etc.) but the part shows as white on the screen. At one time the part did show correctly on the screen. In the assembly the mating part shows as blue (correctly). When I render, though the part shows as white in the SW window it renders correctly.

I can send the part to you. I'd rather send it directly as opposed to posting it.

Thanks for your help.

[mtripoli]

Hi JD,

When I assign materials I do it at the sldprt level on the individual part so that at a later time if I want to change anything I can do it easily.

When I know I'll render the part with Maxwell I do not assign any SW materials, colors, etc. I've gone through and made sure that no SW materials are assigned (just in case). The part in question (actually I have the same part saved as different names with different colors) shows on the screen as white. As I said, if I select it the object properties it shows the correct material (shiny blue plastic, shiny red plastic, etc.) but the part shows as white on the screen. At one time the part did show correctly on the screen. In the assembly the mating part shows as blue (correctly). When I render, though the part shows as white in the SW window it renders correctly.

One other piece of info: only one MXM is applied to the body; no individual faces or such.

I can send the part to you. I'd rather send it directly as opposed to posting it.

Thanks for your help.

[JDHill]

Hi Mike,

I have seen some .sldprt models where I had to go to the very top node in the FeatureManager and remove a color that was there - as far as I know, I'd never assigned this color (just a default light-grey) explicitly, but there it was anyway. So I get into the SW-color page for that top-level node, and it shows up with the button 'Remove All Colors', which I do - from then on, the plugin has no problem showing colors.

I guess, I should be asking too, what version of SW are you running? If it's 2008, what if you just select a face, and go to the Appearance callout (bottom-right button in the 'tooltip' interface that appears). In the SW color/texture-assignment 'tree' there, are the blue/red/etc. colors present anywhere? If you have viewport materials enabled, I have a hard time thinking of how they would not be showing up.

As far as sending me the file, that would be great - I think I can get up to 20MB email at the gmail account in my forum profile.

Thanks,

JD

[mtripoli]

**EDIT** Nope... I went back to the old driver... no change


I sent you the part... I'm wondering... how much influence, if any, does DirectX and or the video driver have on this? I just (in the last day) updated both Direct X as well as my video driver (Nvidia Quadro FX 4500). I recall that the colors showed correctly "the other day".... If you open the part and it's blue it's something with my machine...

[JDHill]

Hi Mike, I got it, and it's not blue - in fact, here there is nothing assigned at all. The Material (shiny blue plastic, it has sss) is there in the file, but nothing shows up on the part. Assigning it is no problem here, the color shows up fine. That's using the newest build though - I have to reinstall the old plugin to try to see what's going on there, so that will take awhile.

JD

[JDHill]

On further examination, the Material is indeed assigned to the object - here, re-assigning it causes the color to show up fine in the viewport. Also, assigning anything else also shows the correct color. This is on SW2008 - it is possible for you to see different behavior on SW2007. In fact, the plugin tries up to three separate ways of setting the viewport color of an entity, in an attempt to force a similar behavior on both versions, but apparently this still fails to work in some cases. Note that sometimes it may help to rebuild - SW may fix things up internally, and show you the correct colors.

About updating DirectX, as far as I know, SW doesn't use DirectX at all, so I wouldn't guess that to be a factor. As to updating your card drivers, I really couldn't say whether or not that would affect anything.

JD

[mtripoli]

Thanks JD. As I said, I tried everything and couldn't get it to go back to blue. It sounds like SW is being un-co-operative... it renders fine so I'll wait for the new plugin...

[mtripoli]

Solved - Enable "Viewport Materials"...