Creating and Editing Appearances

Creating and editing appearances are nearly identical procedures.

Before you create or edit an appearance, it is helpful to see the visual effects of the changes to the appearance's parameters if you apply the new or edited appearance to a part in the project first. You can do this by dragging and dropping the appearance from the Appearances tab to a part in a model.

To create and edit appearances:

  1. In the Palette, on the Appearances tab, do one of the following:
    • To create a new appearance, click Add and click New Appearance.
    • To edit an existing appearance, select an appearance in the Appearance tree.
      You can double-click a part in the viewport to select its appearance in the Appearance tree.
  2. Specify the Appearance Type.
    Each type of appearance has unique parameters. You can change the values of these parameters, but you cannot change which parameters are available except by switching to a different type. Therefore, decide on the Appearance Type of the appearance before you change any of its parameters.
  3. Specify the appearance parameters (such as Diffusion, Emission, and Roughness).
  4. Optional: Specify the Texture parameters (such as Color, Specular, and Alpha).
  5. Optional: Add the appearance to the Appearance library: Select the appearance in the Appearances tab and under Save Appearance, click To Library.
    Regardless of whether the appearance originated in the Appearance library, saving it from the Appearances tab to the Appearance library adds the modified appearance to the library as a new appearance.