Exporting for keyshot materials and colors

[JST]

I must not understand this.

More specifically, I can get what I want to appear in Keyshot. And I can get what I want to appear in GD (within the GD limits). Those things are explained reasonably well.

What I do NOT understand, is how to get the two linked, so that I do not have to edit each and every feature in Keyshot to get the wanted effect.

Apparently I also do not understand what colors even come through to Keyshot, because only some colors seem to come through. If I change the color in the GD assembly level, it does not seem to work. If I change the color in the individual part, it "sometimes" works. Not always. If I do an "edit here", and save, it does not always even work in GD, let alone Keyshot. Yes I looked for later over-rides.

Transparency property does not seem to export, glass must be made glass in keyshot even though it is glass in GD.

Feature colors do not seem to export, I see only the base default gray color in keyshot.

And I must generally not have the materials definition idea right, things do not export, and I have to go thru the whole list editing in keyshot for lights, reflectivity, surface properties, etc.

I read up the manual where it seemed appropriate, but I think it went past me, or I didn't look in the right place.

I assumed that if I got the definitions right, called glass glass in GD, that it would appear right in keyshot. Evidently I didn't, or it doesn't.

I am aware of creating a table, but am NOT clear on where that is done to have it apply, how to have it apply to a specific input file.

The pieces are explained, but how they go together is not at all clear.

Where do I look for info on doing it right?

Obviously I am doing things wrong, I can't get the cup color right, but other colors come through OK. The keyshot materials table has some colors right, but not the cup. the right ones are solid colors right through.

The cups in the lighted cabinet should be an orange outside and white inside. I made the feature color for the revolve boss orange, and the shell feature color white. Didn't come through for some reason. The transparency of glass, like the carafe, does not come through, which I thought it would "automatically". So every time I change the bip file, I have a long list to go through setting properties.


As seen here


It's OK in GD


Edit: I did get the cup to come through, but I had to change the overall cup color property to the orange. It STILL has a white interior in GD, but is now all orange in Keyshot. Kinda spoils the effect of having the customer's display item shown in the cabinet...... it looks nothing like it. I suppose I would have to make a white piece to fit inside the cup.... EVEN THOUGH there is already a way to color it in GD.

Ouch. That's gonna hurt if it really does need done for everything, everytime.

 

[RocketNut]

Salutations JST

I ran into that problem. Please take a look at my post [http://forum.alibre.com/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=18535] when I ask the same question.

Basically it boils down that the cup is a single piece. So KeyShot assumes the entire cup [outside an inside] is ORG. To make the inside WHT you have to make it in two pieces, one the outside, an another piece for the inside.

I hope that helps out.

Rocket Nut

 

[JST]

WELL, YES AND NO.

For that cup, that is what I assumed, from the behavior. Feature colors are ignored, although IIRC this is no issue with SWX..... but then I didn't use keyshot with SWX.

Assuming a part is one color is a VERY SEVERE limitation, as things get painted different colors, etc. Having to break the unit down into parts according to a surface color treatment seem completely wrong and beyond counter-intuitive.... it's counter-reality....

Ok, that's fine for the cup. It am what it is, and nothing to be gained by squalling about it.

Edit:

I have discovered that nothig matters except the material name..... that's the only link for the properties to be applied in Keyshot. So I put in material names that hopefully will work OK.

I still, after viewing the tutorials, don't quite see how to link the different things up. The problem is at the Keyshot end, so I move over to that subforum

 

[JST]

OK, here is the MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION...

For materials..... the definition in keyshot includes a color.... which may come from the part.....

CAN I JUST HAVE ONE DEFINITION FOR "GLOSSY PAINT" TO COVER ALL COLORS?

Or do I have to have a named "glossy paint deep orange" and a"glossy paint not quite so deep orange" and so forth (probably with number references actually)?

That is a question I cannot seem to find answered. It would be impossibly interlinked if the color has to be specified in the material, so I have assumed that is not the case for the moment in trying to decipher this and get a table set up.

 

[jhiker]

Keyshot will not know or care which materials you applied to the model in Geomagic. GM allows you to specify different materials to make use of the 'properties' - mass/CofG, etc.
Keyshot v5 does not know the difference between the inside and outside of a cup that's modelled in one piece - if you want to apply two different materials to the cup in Keyshot it has to be two different surfaces in GM.
Have you checked out the 'colours & paints' in Keyshot - there' hundreds of variations. If you customise one of them you can save it to a library giving it a name of your choosing.
By the way, unless things have changed recently GM/Alibre is using an old version of the Keyshot/BIP plugin.
It am what it is.....

 

[JST]

Have you checked out the 'colours & paints' in Keyshot - there' hundreds of variations. If you customise one of them you can save it to a library giving it a name of your choosing.

Yes, I see that. It usually seems to work.

AND I see that the materials in the library are selected by type, surface AND COLOR. That implies that color is baked-into the material, OVER-RIDING the color that came in with the part from GD. I seem to have to pick a color, which will then be assigned to ALL the items with a matching material name, no matter what color I actually wanted them to be.

OK.... Now suppose I have a couple dozen things with "gloss paint" as the material name in GD. Each is a different color, which is assigned in GD, and I would like it to carry through, which it seems to do in the absence of ant material template or assignments.

When KS sees that 'gloss paint" material, does it get applied as a surface type to whatever color the object is, per the color that came in from GD? In other words, IS the gloss PROPERTY used on THE BROUGHT-IN COLOR?

Or is the gloss AND the color a non-separable group? Is a name then for a combination of surface AND color? Does each object in GD have to have a separate, individual different name that is ONLY for the objects that are of one color, EVEN THOUGH they are all of one surface type, AND each has a color already defined and brought in from GD.....? Would I need "gloss paint orange" and "gloss paint yellow" and "gloss paint green" etc as material names?

If the latter, it sounds SO clumsy and annoying that I can barely believe anyone could credibly suggest it. We already have a color assigned in GD, and needing to rename the material for each minor different shade of red or whatever is just not even a believable thing... They just CAN NOT BE that stupid, really..... That is like what 1980s CAD was like... it can't be true now.

So, are they? Is that really how it has to happen?

Or, is there a way to use the incoming color as the part color?

 

[jhiker]

Have you checked out the 'colours & paints' in Keyshot - there' hundreds of variations. If you customise one of them you can save it to a library giving it a name of your choosing.

OK.... Now suppose I have a couple dozen things with "gloss paint" as the material name in GD. Each is a different color, which is assigned in GD, and I would like it to carry through, which it seems to do in the absence of ant material template or assignments.

When KS sees that 'gloss paint" material, does it get applied as a surface type to whatever color the object is, per the color that came in from GD? In other words, IS the gloss PROPERTY used on THE BROUGHT-IN COLOR?

I don't understand what you're doing here. You can't apply a 'Gloss Paint' material in GM.
It doesn't matter what the material properties are in GM - Keyshot won't know, they could all be made of cheese - it won't matter. They will just be a collection of solid objects.
Apply the materials once you've got the model in Keyshot.

 

[JST]

I don't understand what you're doing here. You can't apply a 'Gloss Paint' material in GM.
It doesn't matter what the material properties are in GM - Keyshot won't know, they could all be made of cheese - it won't matter. They will just be a collection of solid objects.
Apply the materials once you've got the model in Keyshot.

In that case, what is the template for?

If I call the MATERIAL NAME "gloss paint" in GD, I thought that the template would be used by KS to apply a particular set of properties to everything which had a material name of "gloss paint" (or whatevér name). If not, then the videos are all wrong.

The question is whether the COLOR is also applied to everything with that same material name, or whether KS would still use the color that GD had.

Without the template, KS uses the color that GD has. That's what I see happen now.

If the color is part of the material properties in KS, then you would have to have the material name given in GD different for each and every distinct color as well, which is very restricting...... "gloss paint blue" and "gloss paint red" would be different materials. And if you wanted a different color in KS you would need a different material name in GD

 

[jhiker]

You can (for example) apply different coloured gloss paints to individual parts in the scene which have the same name. They do not have to be 'linked'.

 

[JST]

Sure, but I have a lot of parts, the entire idea here is to not have to do it manually each time the bip file is re-exported.

So I'd like to have it in the template, but there are two obstacles.....

1) the template file refuses to use the material name, even though there is a selection to do so.

2) When I have tried it, the colors were applied over the ones I wanted, I could not avoid it.

So far , nearly everything different that I wanted to do AND it seemed like GD WOULD do has ended up with some form of "well, GD actually doesn't really do that"..... I hope this is not just another one of those.