Painting a component

#1

New to SU. Can someone please tell me why I can’t paint a component? I don’t understand the difference between default and non-default material. Apparently you can edit the component if it was created with default material? Confusing. I drew a simple block and saved it as a component, no color or material, just a plain 3D block. After recalling the component into a new model, I cannot paint it or add texture, only able to modify it’s geometry. TIA

#2

Sorry, disregard my inability to paint a component. It was just a simple fix and I’m embarrassed to say what it was. Is there a way to delete a message after posting it?

#3

I would guess you had the face style set to monochrome so that you couldn’t see any material you had already applied, it would be useful for others to see what did fix it though. No need for embarrassment.

#4

A component-instance can be assigned a material.
Any faces within its entities will display showing that assigned material, unless the faces already have a material applied to them.
Faces within a saved component definition can either have the default material, or another material assigned to them.
When an instance of a component is added to a model [or imported], then it will initially display using the materials assigned to its faces.
If a material is applied to the instance then any faces within it which have the default material are displayed using that new material.

FYI, imagine a car component that has materials applied to its tyres, trim, glass, interior, lights etc, but the bodywork is the default material.
If you have two instances of that component in your model you can apply ‘red’ to one and ‘blue’ to another.
Each instance then shows with all 'trim; constant, but the bodywork changes to the applied material…

#5

You can’t delete the opening post on a topic - unless you’re a moderator or administrator.

You CAN delete any further contributions you made as replies.
You CAN edit your opening post to say simply “Never Mind, I did something dumb and fixed it myself - Moderator: please delete this thread!”
You CAN edit the topic title to “Ignore this! Was a dumb question that I solved myself”

One other thing: Put an “@” sign in front of “Moderator” without an intervening space. This will “tag” all the moderators - i.e. bring your post to their attention. I didn’t do so here because I don’t want to draw their attention to this reply!

#6

I think of the “default material” as no material. It makes more sense how a face with no specified material visually inherits the parent containers material. It also fits better into how SketchUp works under the hood. (And Layer0 is really No Layer but that is a different story.)

#7

This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.