topic Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials in Visualization

HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 10:51:34 GMT

I constantly struggle with the "Materials" in ArchiCAD, probably because of my lack of knowledge on them. I want to take the material " Siding-4" H" and change the color from the default white to a gray. So, I open Options-Element Attributes-Materials. What do I do from here? I've tried changing the surface color, the specular color, etc to no avail. Can anyone guide me on this seemingly easy task?

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Erika Epstein — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:33:53 GMT

Steve,
First, duplicate the material as you never know how other library parts or a colleague may use the original.

To change the color of the material, double click on the colored rectangle to the right of the words "surface material".

I was going to admonish you for not looking in the help or reference in the Help menu, but there doesn't seem to be an explanation.

I also suggest buying one of Dwight's books as they go over the basics of these settings box and you will find his tomes invaluable.

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

David Maudlin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:49:13 GMT

Steve:

In addition to Erika's advice, be warned that the materials' Alpha Channel Effects do not appear in the 3D Window (even OpenGL with textures). The correct color will show in Renderings, but the material you show in your screen shot (for example) will always appear white with black lines when showing textures in OpenGL, or as the color you set under "Surface Color:" under the Internal Engine Shading (or OpenGL without textures).

David

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:58:52 GMT

....and so if it is essential to see the color in the OpenGL window, you need to edit the texture image in a photo editor and change the color there...

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Dwight — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:14:07 GMT

Erika wrote:

I also suggest buying one of Dwight's books as they go over the basics of these settings box and you will find his tomes invaluable.

"Tome, tome on the range, where the beer and the fingertips play…"

"LightWorks in Archicad" remains on sale throughout the Christmas season as indicated below.

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:36:30 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Erika wrote:

I also suggest buying one of Dwight's books as they go over the basics of these settings box and you will find his tomes invaluable.
"Tome, tome on the range, where the beer and the fingertips play…"

Ohhhh, that gave me quite a laugh!

I see now, for some stupid reason you can't tell the color in the 3D window, you have to do a photorender to actually see the color change.

All the countless hours spent messing around trying to change the color when it was changing all along....

OK, so what if I want to show a client a project by "flying" around it in 3D perspective using the explore tool, and have the siding changed to a different color? Do I have to manually update the color in a separate photo software, then bring it back in, as Karl explained?? You should be able to change the color and have it change all around; 3D window, photorender, and the preview box in the material settings.

WISH!

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:14:55 GMT

I second that "stupid". Good grief, for such an expensive program it sure has some dumb characteristics.

Wish, wish!!

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Dwight — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:05:42 GMT

Just to clarify, in case anyone is confused, that the various methods of rendering an Archicad view aren't connected and neither are material definitions. Changing the appearance of a material throughout all rendering methods is a tedious, manual task.

This comes about since Archicad evolves from imaging technology from the last century. Before some of you were even born.

So sorry. Being Canadian, let me apologize for Zoltan and Laszlo who have no doubt been sent to the basement to make outlandish materials as punishment for this oversight.

Things were well connected before LightWorks arrived. Then, a single definition made in the Internal engine renderer controlled color, reflectance and texture mapping. The internal 3D viewer and the Internal rendering engine both referenced these values.

When LightWorks arrived, a whole new way of surfacing came along and the only way to use the existing definitions is through repeated use of the "Match With Infernal Engine" button.

It probably won't get fixed. Rendering is obviously not a Graphisoft priority and ten years ago, when I complained about Archicad's bad materials, I was told "Let them buy the Artlantis shaders…" I think that man descended from Marie Antoinette.

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:11:39 GMT

Dwight,
Thank you for the history and explanation. But, being a total beginner at these material/rendering things, I'm still not clear on what you said.

I tried changing the surface color of 06 | w Siding-08" H and then clicking on "Match with Internal Engine". What is that supposed to do for us? It didn't show the new color with the texture in OpenGL in the 3D window. Should it? If not that, then what does it do?

Thank you,
Doug

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

David Maudlin — Fri, 07 May 2010 12:34:08 GMT

Doug wrote:
I tried changing the surface color of 06 | w Siding-08" H and then clicking on "Match with Internal Engine". What is that supposed to do for us?

It changes the LightWorks settings to match the Internal Engine settings, it does not effect the OpenGl at all.

Doug wrote:
It didn't show the new color with the texture in OpenGL in the 3D window. Should it?

No, see my earlier reply (Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:49 am) in this thread.

David

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:08:16 GMT

Thanks, David. Obviously I need to study this stuff to get a handle on the basics.

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:04:41 GMT

Hi guys, I also struggle with this. I am very new to Archicad so apologies if I'm missing something obvious.

Everything in my 3d window looks grey. I am trying to make a colorbond shed. When I go to options / element attributes / materials I change the surface colour to anything (like bright green) nothing happens in the 3D window. I understand from the posts above that it won't change the 3D it will only change what gets output when you do a photorender. So I do a photorender ane the whole thing still looks grey.

When I choose other items for the walls and roof from the model settings like Brick, the brick colours show up fine in both views showing the texture and the color but the chanegs to the material colour that I make dont' seem to work. I have tried the internal rendering engine and the lightworks rendering engine (I don't really understand what they mean). I have tried all rendering engines in fact both on the material settings and the photo render settings. I select every option that I think could have an impact on the quality of the final render but no good.

I also in desperation found the corrogated iron texture in the library, coped it, edited it in photoshop to give it a new colour, re-loaded the library then selected the new texture in the material window. this didn't change the appearance either in the 3D window or in the photorender immediately but then at some point (im not exactly sure when) seemed to change everything on the page (all walls, roofs etc) to the new material. Which is not what I wanted but I seem to be getting somewhere. If there is something obvious that I am doing that anyone can help with please let me know otherwise I'll push on anyway and if I figure it out I'll post back with where I got to with it!

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:11:17 GMT

Steven wrote:
OK, so what if I want to show a client a project by "flying" around it in 3D perspective using the explore tool, and have the siding changed to a different color?
WISH!

So, just to be clear, there is no way to change the color of a material that has "texture" so that the change shows up when "flying" around in 3D. Is that right? If so, what do the experts here do to accomplish this valuable task?

Thank you,
Doug

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:18:59 GMT

As I understand it, the "material" is an actual image, jpeg or similar, so no, you cannot change the color of an existing image. The "texture" of a material can be changed, this is what you would see in an exterior elevation, clapboards for example. That can be changed for any material.

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:17:42 GMT

Steven wrote:
As I understand it, the "material" is an actual image, jpeg or similar, so no, you cannot change the color of an existing image. The "texture" of a material can be changed, this is what you would see in an exterior elevation, clapboards for example. That can be changed for any material.

Steve—So, did you find a way to change colors of materials so you they would show up in OpenGDL as you showed a client the model in 3D?

Doug

Re: HELP! Can't change color of materials

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 20:27:12 GMT

I just stumbled on this. I can't seem to find an colour options for Door or Windows, mainly in the 3D view. Any solutions found to this?