Assign material to entire level with RGB colored elements

Maybe use selection ( lock Level, select all elements on this level and assing materials to selected elements ) ?

Hi Martinezx,

Then I would have to assign materials every time I reloaded a reference to be sure that all objects had the proper material assigned.

I was hoping there would be a way to assign a material to a range of RGB colors, or maybe to the entire level regardless of color assignment to the objects.

Just like I can do something like "Default:0-255", to assign to all the system colors on a level, I would like to assign to all RGB colors.

Thanks for the help Martinezx. It still doesn't wok here!?

When I change the assignment in the material editor it dissapears.

F.ex. from "Default : (97,97,97)" to "Default : *" the assignments are all lost, and no material is assigned to level Default anymore.

I am using uStation v8i SS3 - Version 08.11.09.459

Right Torben - i found that your way make what you say

My way is to make material first and  choose New Assigments and put only a name of level

see the capture screen video i make with your method and what you must to do... ( yeah it' strange or bug )

So just in material editor  click on material  and choose Material > New Assigment  from top menu > put only level name

OR  right click on material level name > Edit Assigments > Edit > delete color and click OK

Hi Martinezx,

Thanks very much your continuous effort to help me! I owe you a beer :)
..I still don't get it to work.. I wonder if something is completely wrong with my install?

I cannot see the movie you have included, but I can edit the assignments using the various options available. Regardless of the method I choose, the outcome is the same. If I edit an assignment and simply remove the colors, all assignments are then lost. (As they should be).

Tries and outcomes to get assigned to an entire level including all RGB values

"Default : 2" - Assigns to one color from the palette.
"Default : 0-254" - Assigns to all the palette colors, but not to RGB. (Colors like 5578, 10005 etc)
"Default : *" - Erases assignments
"Default : 0-10000 (anything above 254) - Erases statements

Error in a dialog

You are correct, there is an ERROR in the assignments dialog (right click material, edit assignments).
It enters 0-255 as the colors but seeing as 255 is an illegal value there is nothing assigned.
Bentley should fix this!

Torben, "Default : *" should work. You should also be able to just input "Default"

Looking at the images you posted at the beginning of the thread, you already have Mirror assigned to "Default :2" so, I imagine, trying to, then, assign Clay to "Default : *", is going to cause trouble.

You really need to start thinking in terms of layering for rendering, if that is all you are trying to do in these models (which your choice of modelling on Default would indicate), so, the elements that want a Mirror material should be on a Mirror level, and so on.

Of course, seeing Default level being used (and full RGB colours), makes me wonder whether this is simply an SKP that you imported. This has been a long standing issue with using the SKP importer to accessorise your scene. In my experience, I have generally delayered the imported geometry to fit my rendering needs, by selecting By Element Colour and moving to a level I set up purposely for that material. It can be time consuming but, if it is accessorising, that you are doing, chances are that you plan to reuse that stuff in other scenes, so you could consider setting up a special cell library for that purpose.

One last thing. The last time I checked, when you saved to external MAT table, MS still insisted on saving your "Default : *" entry into as many lines as there are pre-set colours. If that method is still used, internally, it would cause a bit of a problem with full RGB elements, that could not be covered by this method. At the time, I argued strongly that, If I manually entered "Default : *" in the interface, the resulting MAT file should show the same exact entry. The justification, then, was that the colour by colour syntax was there for backwards compatibility.

Unfortunately I have to agree to Torben, I did some tests with the .459 version to assign materials. The behaviour of the Input boxes and dialogs is not descriptable. I was sometimes able to assign a level (for all colors) to a material, but whenever I try to make an additional assignment, everything is gone.

I would normally not go this way ! I tried to assign the material to the level in levelmanager and this one works (at least for me) as expected, but the assignements in material editor do even not work for me.

Unfortunately I have to agree to Torben, I did some tests with the .459 version to assign materials. The behaviour of the Input boxes and dialogs is not descriptable. I was sometimes able to assign a level (for all colors) to a material, but whenever I try to make an additional assignment, everything is gone.

I would normally not go this way ! I tried to assign the material to the level in levelmanager and this one works (at least for me) as expected, but the assignements in material editor do even not work for me.

i do use the layered approach.  i was just anticipating a future situation with loads of externally changing rgb elements.

and thank you very very much Michael for verifying!

Interesting, Michael, I had a similar problem a while back but thought the issue was due to the fact that I was trying to use external MAT and PALs, that did not seem to stick. Maybe Torben has, indeed, uncovered a bug.

Torben, I hope you were not offended, as I meant no offence. Just that the Editor example you gave at the beginning of the thread seemed to show the type of modelling behaviour I have seen, too often, in Sketchup models.

Regardless, both "Default : *" and "Default" (as manual edits in the Material Manager) worked, in the past. If they do not, now, then something is, indeed, broken.

Am not in Windows now, so I can't test it, but you should be able to right click on a material, choose New Assignment (or whatever the exact wording might be) and manually write in just the level name/s you want assigned to it. Again, if that does not stick, it is either broken, or Bentley has changed the behaviour and not documented it.

Ciao

Couldn't help myself. Rebooted into Windows and went into a model that has only one level, called Existing.

I opened the Material Editor, created a new Palette and a new material, within it.

I then right clicked on the material, chose New Assignment and entered Existing in the pop up field that comes up for Level:Color

The view was set to smooth and the material assignment immediately showed up in the view.

If you right click on the material and choose Edit Assignments, the Material Assignments window does show it assigned to Existing:0-255

Restarted the drawing, to be sure, and the assignment still sticks.

Started the drawing on a different machine, and the material still sticks.

So, I then changed the colour of the Existing level to be an RGB colour and that is when the weird stuff starts.

Before exiting the DGN, I had not saved settings, so I had to change the acceleration of the view back to Smooth/Modelling, to see whether the material was sticking. It seemed to, but I was now seeing transparent, rather than smooth. Tried changing it a few times but still showed transparent.

Then I tried to render and Luxology crashed out on me. I restarted the drawing and tried to render, again, still with no luck. Luxology seems to freeze, on a scene that, earlier, had rendered in a few seconds.

My gut feeling is that if you assign to a specific RGB colour it might work, but if you have a catch all, like I initially set up (and has stuck) the engine gets in trouble. I can't help but think that it is that 0-255 argument...

I am going to force quit this session. The render window minimised when I pulled up the Material Editor, and I have not been able to get it to Restore, in the past 5 minutes or so.

Would be nice if someone else could repeat this simple test to see if Michael's suspicion that the behaviour is, actually, unpredictable is correct.

Cheers

In addition (without currently being able to test stonellis way), I had it cut down in my case, that whenever a second level is involved in a assignment that has the 0-255 color setting, the complete assignments are lost.

That is easy to reproduce, create an assignment with 'edit assignment' choose a level, and you will be in the '<levelname> : *' case (showing color 0-255 in edit dialog). When you thereafter try to create a second levelentry (via 'new assignment') or choose a second level (via STRG in 'edit assignment') the complete previous assignments are lost.

To our luck, the levelmanager way is working, and if a developer has a reproduceable testcase, he will surely find the reason, and mostly a way around. :-)