[fix target: v23]Does V22 split every single surface when you pass a model through to Keyshot now?

[jhiker]

Does V22 split every single surface when you pass a model through to Keyshot now?
If I drag and drop a material from the KS material library window at the LHS on to a component it applies the material to the whole component. However, if I use copy and paste (Shft+LMB - Shft+RMB) it seems to apply the material to only one particular face or facet of the component. I don't think it's always behaved like that.
Likewise in the scene tree - it's difficult to edit the material of a whole component which might have many facets. Not sure I've explained that very well but I hope you get my drift.
Thanks

 

[DavidJ]

Not sure of the detail, but likely a consequence of 'Face Colours to Keyshot'.

Hopefully Max can add some information/tips....

 

[simonb65]

It seems to add all the faces to the scene tree (BLUE), not just itemising those that are explicitly coloured. It used to only add the part (RED) ...



Apply materials using the scene tree is the way to go. Not sure how it now affects applying material templates, but I'll find out later!

Not sure why there is 2 levels of part added though, not noticed that before.

 

[simonb65]

I was going to test what the names are for the faces when a part with a coloured face is rendered (as Material Templates relies on element name wildcards for its matching and material assigning), BUT ... with KeyShot already open and already accepted the model data (previous post), Alibre then hangs at 100% CPU if I just assign a colour to a face then hit Render again. Progress bar in the lower status bar hasn't moved for over 4 minutes! CPU usage before the operation was at 3% ...



over 4 minutes later ...

 

[simonb65]

Just repeated the same thing and this time it worked ok, don't know why but KeyShot threw and error and an autogenerated crash report has now gone to KeyShot !!!!!!!!!

However the name of the face isn't reflected in KeyShot and so you can't actually use the Material Template within KeyShot now on faces. ie. I would name the face something like "EndFace_Finished" and in KeyShot the material template would apply say a "brushed steel" material for anything names "*_Finished" in the scene tree. This won't work unless the assigned Name of the face is transferred over to KeyShot (which it isn't!) ...

 

[jhiker]

It seems to add all the faces to the scene tree (BLUE), not just itemising those that are explicitly coloured. It used to only add the part (RED) ...

Indeed! Is that intended behaviour, I wonder? There's certainly a lot more scrolling up and down the scene tree involved.

 

[simonb65]

There's certainly a lot more scrolling up and down the scene tree involved.

That was the original reason why I changed to using a pre-define Material Template and it's inbuilt pattern matching for assigning materials to my products (200+ parts), but even that doesn't work in this new scheme!

Seems like the workflow for coloured face->assign material only works well if you have a) A small model and b) you like doing manual operations c) Have plenty of time on yuor hands!

 

[jhiker]

I'll check this later but I'm almost sure I could not edit the material of a parent part in the scene tree either by double clicking on it (to open properties) or by right clicking and selecting 'edit material/edit material graph'. Talking about KS Pro here. It only works on the individual surfaces below the parent part, of which there may be very many.

 

[simonb65]

I'll check this later but I'm almost sure I could not edit the material of a parent part in the scene tree either by double clicking on it (to open properties) or by right clicking and selecting 'edit material/edit material graph'. Talking about KS Pro here. It only works on the individual surfaces below the parent part, of which there may be very many.

You can drag and drop a material from the material library and drop it on any item in the scene geometry tree, it is then applied to all that items children.

 

[HaroldL]

Remember that all parts that have the same color in AD will be linked when sent to KS. That won't help with a material template but should help if applying materials in the real-time window or the scene tree.

 

[JST]

Are you saying that material templates no longer work in KS from Alibre V22?

That is a real showstopper for me...... I'd not be able to use V22

 

[simonb65]

Are you saying that material templates no longer work in KS from Alibre V22?

That is a real showstopper for me...... I'd not be able to use V22

They will only work based on the part name (so at the part level it's not broken as the part name is supplied by Alibre), so all faces below that get the same material assigned as the parent part.

However, the face names are, by default, given a postfix (by Alibre? by KeyShot?) to the part name, but coloured faces get numbered postfixes (by Alibre? by KeyShot?) ... not something that the user can currently control and so nothing you can controllably individually match a template pattern on!

The faces need the names from Alibre in order that they are controlled and defined by the user to satisfy the pattern matching in the template.

 

[jhiker]

I'll check this later but I'm almost sure I could not edit the material of a parent part in the scene tree either by double clicking on it (to open properties) or by right clicking and selecting 'edit material/edit material graph'. Talking about KS Pro here. It only works on the individual surfaces below the parent part, of which there may be very many.

Just checked and I'm happy to say I was wrong about this. A 'collapse all' button would be useful though.

 

[simonb65]

A 'collapse all' button would be useful though.

Just RMB on the tree, it's in the context menu ...

 

[JST]

They will only work based on the part name (so at the part level it's not broken as the part name is supplied by Alibre), so all faces below that get the same material assigned as the parent part.
........

So the long-standing problem that the Alibre export is broken still exists? After all these versions?

Yeeeesh.

It's been YEARS since I put in a ticket about the "material" not working so that the KS material assignments can ONLY be made on the basis of "part name", which equals "file name". So that means that every change to the BIP file requires a new assignment of the material file. Maybe it works better if KS is operated from within Alibre, but 12 CPUs seems not to be enough power to make that work decently.

That absolutely RULES OUT any attempt to use the KS material names in Alibre to prevent having to manually assign materials to the model "in the white" inside KS. This should have been fixed LONG ago.

How long is it gonna take until Alibre is able to output a sensible file to Keyshot?

 

[simonb65]

so that the KS material assignments can ONLY be made on the basis of "part name",

Yes. Material templates in KS work on pattern matching against the scene tree item name, which for a part is the part name supplied by AD over livelinking. Not sure if AD or KS assigns face names!!

That absolutely RULES OUT any attempt to use the KS material names in Alibre to prevent having to manually assign materials to the model

Correct, actual material info is not passed from AD to KS.

So the workaround (as my workflow does) is to name the parts, or now colour faces, with a postfix that the material template can match on (which for clarity could be the KS material name). I.e AD Part name = B123_Left_Bracket_BrushedAluminium. This, however will not work for the new face colours as the face name is not passed to KS! (See previous post for details). Yes, it's a horrible solution, especially when you've already allocated a material to your part. Although, saying that, the material of the part body may not be the outerfinish that you want to render, i.e Aluminium part which has some faces painted and others machined! So the solution is to include a finish property to the AD material. Add a finish to a face in AD and pass those to KS. Colour assignment should be a property of the material or face finish. That's how they would be defined and processed in the real world.

 

[JST]

Yes. Material templates in KS work on pattern matching against the scene tree item name, which for a part is the part name supplied by AD over livelinking. Not sure if AD or KS assigns face names!!
.................

Well, what I have done for years, since even this fairly powerful (gaming type) computer is not happy with livelinking, is to use the material template .

In that, you have a choice of EITHER "part name" OR "material". I browsed through the BIP file created by Alibre, and discovered that Alibre ONLY supports the "part name" choice, with "part name" being actually "file name" (also a big, big, problem, but let that go for now).

What is really wanted is to be able to assign the material (or "finish") as a Keyshot name, and have it "just happen". The material template is a big nuisance.

 

[jhiker]

Just RMB on the tree, it's in the context menu ...

View attachment 31855

Thanks - I missed that!

 

[AlexB]

Is there a way to disable the surface splitting when exporting to Keyshot?
The 'Rounded Edges' feature in Keyshot won't work if a model is split into seperate surfaces, at least for me.

 

[HaroldL]

Is there a way to disable the surface splitting when exporting to Keyshot?
The 'Rounded Edges' feature in Keyshot won't work if a model is split into seperate surfaces, at least for me.

This sounds like a case of unintended consequences. If Alibre is going to split every surface it's not going to bode well for rendering as you have found out. It would be nice if it performed similar to how SolidWorks handles colored surfaces - it doesn't split any surfaces, at least as I recall.

Unless there is something in System Options or File Properties it is unlikely to have on "Off" switch for surface splitting. As for rounding edges I've always added fillets to the model(s) before kicking them over to KS. That eliminated the need for Rounded Edges in KS.