Local Material

Hi Eric,

I am assuming you are talking about rendering with AECOsim Building Designer.  There is certainly no requirement to use project materials.  Parts can be pointed to any dgnlib with material pallettes stored in it.  In fact, most of the delivered parts are pointing to the Bentley_Materials.dgnlib stored in the workspace/System/Materials folder.

The Project_Materials.dgnlib was simply another way of managing materials so that the parts could be locked down in a company dataset, and users could control and modify materials per project without having to reassign the material to the part.

Maybe if you can describe in a little more detail what you are trying to do, I can give you better input.

Mary Chib

But I still create Materials the same way.

When I do, some can be local and some in a master store.

I don't want local.

What is a minor but a continuous irritant =  like a gnat in a tent is

I have to make a change to the material then update to library constantly.

This is because of the confusion with doing this over and over and over - I then get files that are sometimes local.  I never want that.  Local files get lost in a job and are not freely available for for the next job.

I want to disable local material so that I never misplace a material and NEVER have to spend time trying to firure out why the material is "checked" but still doesn't render like the changes.

For what it is worth, I agree with Eric. The Mat/Pal system of old was very understandable and worked brilliantly for projects. The new system tends to favor local materials, which can cause big issues when various people are working on the same project. Maybe it is a question of it not being explained well enough to people who were so used to the old system? For my personal experience, I recently tried to force the use of external Mat and Pal files and, though I thought I had the proper configuration settings, I had a lot of trouble, specifically with the issue of local updates that Eric alludes to. I would make a change while in one drawing, and realize later that it had been local, because it would not show up in the next drawing....

It is easy once you know how to do it;-)

Okay I have opened an old data set from my rendering book and I get this.

You guys have seen this to be honestly I always just say yes to local materials and here is why.

Now I have local materials but I have the old palette file too ( safety net ). I am going to edit the Rug material and change its texture to be different.

Now you see that this material has a triangle over the book that means the definition now differs from is the external palette file. That's cool right you can "have your cake and eat it too" you still have the old definition in the external palette but for this scene you can make all the edits you want without disturbing other folks that are using the old definition or maybe you just want to experiment.

Now you right click on the changed rug material in the list and you get this.

Decisions... decisions... I can get my old rug back by choosing Update from Library and that will give me the check icon and everything will be in-sync again.

I have decided that the new definition is better for everybody so I choose Copy to Library now I get this....

Now everybody on the project will get the new definition if they are using this palette.

I hope this makes the local vs. external a bit clearer .

Cheers,

Jerry

It is easy once you know how to do it;-)

Okay I have opened an old data set from my rendering book and I get this.

You guys have seen this to be honestly I always just say yes to local materials and here is why.

Now I have local materials but I have the old palette file too ( safety net ). I am going to edit the Rug material and change its texture to be different.

Now you see that this material has a triangle over the book that means the definition now differs from is the external palette file. That's cool right you can "have your cake and eat it too" you still have the old definition in the external palette but for this scene you can make all the edits you want without disturbing other folks that are using the old definition or maybe you just want to experiment.

Now you right click on the changed rug material in the list and you get this.

Decisions... decisions... I can get my old rug back by choosing Update from Library and that will give me the check icon and everything will be in-sync again.

I have decided that the new definition is better for everybody so I choose Copy to Library now I get this....

Now everybody on the project will get the new definition if they are using this palette.

I hope this makes the local vs. external a bit clearer .

Cheers,

Jerry

Cool Jerry, will keep this in mind the next time I need to set up for a series of renders. As I recall, my issue was with the fact that I had new files from seed that I was trying to force external mat/pal, which I wanted to keep external, and I found that it ended up on causing problems. Having said that, I was not methodic about it, so I am sure some of the issues might have been EBTK.

Ciao

Jerry, if I can offer one additional suggestion to this strategy - can Bentley add another 'option' to a material that reverts it back to a 'library definition' instead of a local copy? Once you make a change, it is no longer automatically linked back to the library (and future changes made and forced back to the library in a different drawing).

As you know, if you opt to 'remove local copy', all attached materials are lost. (maybe it could be made to remove the material definitions from the table but keep the 'attachments' and move them to a "missing material" palette?)

The Corps of Engineer work that I do has a massive amount of referenced files and adding/corrcting a material in one model does not necessarily update the material tables in the others.

If you make a change to the local copy then you can right click on it and choose Update from Library and that will revert back to the external palette definition.

Paul made a change for me awhile back so that if you have attached materials removing the local copy will not remove the attachments (you still get the warning because you will lose the assignments) it will just revert back to the external palette for that material so the book will appear gray.

If you then move or rename this palette the materials will show up as missing like you want and creating or importing a material that matches the missing material name will cause the material editor to use that definition.

Jerry

I still have to ask - my original question.

Is there a variable to get rid of local material as an option.  I want to only work with external. Always - no exception.

Id' rather have an option that saves a copy of what I edit as an automatic history by one.

But I do that manually by gopying a mater material and editing it and not commiting until I am satisfied.

Hi,

No there is no configuration variable to do that. Materials associated with Levels and Element Templates will always be internal.

Regards

Paul