Adding and assigning materials
Contents
Material Basics
Adding Materials to a Drawing
Materials can be added to your drawing in many ways. Here are a few:
Creating a new material
- You can create a new material by using the dropdown button on the Materials tab of the nXtRender Palette. Choose the appropriate template for your material. The appropriate Material Editor will be invoked. This material is stored in the current drawing only.
Load material from disk or library
- Using the Get Material from File button on the Materials Tab, you can import .nXtMaterial files for use in the current drawing. Many material files are available for Download .
Drop material from Windows File Explorer
- You can drag and drop an .nXtMaterial file directly from explorer into your AutoCAD drawing.
Dropping a material from Windows File Explorer onto an object in AutoCAD:
You are asked whether to assign the material by layer or directly to the object, and also the material is added to the active material list in the nXtRender control panel.
Assigning Materials to Objects and Layers
Materials can be assigned to objects or layers in your drawing. If you use AutoCAD Architecture(r) (formerly Architectural Desktop(r) or ADT) you can also assign materials to AEC components.
There are many ways to assign a material to an object or layer. Here are a few:
- Drag and drop a material from the palette onto an object. You will have the choice of assigning the material to the object or two the object's layer.
- Select the material in question and use the Attach Material to Objects button. This method allows you to assign materials to individual faces of 3dsolids by using AutoCAD's sub-object selection methods.
- Drag and drop a material from the palette onto a layer in the Layer list.
- Select a material from the palette. Select one or more layers from the layer list. Click the Attach Material to Layer button.
- Drag and drop the material file from Explorer directly onto an object in your drawing. This method allows you to add and assign a material in one operation. You will be prompted to choose the object or the object's layer.
Assigning Materials to ACA Components
nXtRender materials are just AutoCAD materials with some additional data attached to them. If you use AutoCAD Architecture (ACA) you can attach an nXtRender material in the same way you would attach an AutoCAD native material. For example, using Style Manager, you can attach an nXtRender material to an AEC material using the following procedure:
- Select your material under Multi-Purpose Objects->Material Definitions.
- On the Display Poperties tab, click the Edit Display Properties button.
- Use the Render Material popdown list to select your nXtRender material. The nXtRender materials will have a prefix of "AccuRender-" before the material name.
Video Tutorial
Creating and using Materials Video
Watch Video q0Dnl5Pnog4
In this Video, Daniel will show you how to create materials and use materials from libraries using nXtRender for AutoCAD.
Create a solid color material, create a material with a texture, select and place materials from libraries.
Additional Notes
- Use the AutoCAD _PURGE command to delete unwanted, unused materials from your drawing. Materials in use cannot be deleted.
- Material assignments by object take precedence over material assignments by layer.
- Use the Remove Material from Objects button to remove materials assigned by object.
- To remove a material assigned by layer, select the layer(s) from the Layer list and click Remove Material from Layers