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How do I editting canned materials

rgarand
Booster
Hello all,

I am getting into some rendering using ArchiCAD.

I would like to edit an existing texture that shipped with ArchiCAD. How do I get to this texture so that I can open it in Photoshop. It is part of the library pla file isn't it. Is there a way to extract it or export it so that I can manipulate it.

TIA
Robert J. Garand
ArchiCAD USA 27-Build 5001 USA FULL
Windows 10 Prof (64 bit) - Intel i9-10920X CPU 3.50 GHz - 128 GB RAM - NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000
5 REPLIES 5
David Larrew
Booster
ArchiCAD stores the material bitmaps in the AC Library. If you are using AC 8.* you will need to extract the Library from the "ArchiCAD Library 8*.PLA".

After you make your changes in the extracted library...
To overwrite/replace your old .PLA you will need to resave a new .PLA file from a blank .PLN file that has the extracted library loaded.
David Larrew, AIA, GDLA, GSRC

Architectural Technology Specialist

a r c h i S O L U T I O N S



WIN7-10/ OSX 10.15.7

AC 5.1-25 USA
Djordje
Ace
David wrote:
ArchiCAD stores the material bitmaps in the AC Library. If you are using AC 8.* you will need to extract the Library from the "ArchiCAD Library 8*.PLA".

After you make your changes in the extracted library...
To overwrite/replace your old .PLA you will need to resave a new .PLA file from a blank .PLN file that has the extracted library loaded.
Ahem ... David ... not really.

The textures are in the Textures 8 folder under your ArchiCAD 8.x/ArchiCAD Library 8.x folder. Edit them there, add new ones. No need to unpack the PLA.
Textures location.jpg
Djordje



ArchiCAD since 4.55 ... 1995
HP Omen
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Djordje wrote:
The textures are in the Textures 8 folder under your ArchiCAD 8.x/ArchiCAD Library 8.x folder. Edit them there, add new ones. No need to unpack the PLA.
Must be an INT vs US thing, Djordje ... or else perhaps because David and I are still using the RC5 US library. But in our US lib, everything (including textures) is inside the PLA.

Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.6, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
David Larrew
Booster
Yeah, why does GS have to make two (or more) different program/library structures for the same (essentially) program!?

Karl, I just checked my "R1" release version of the US library... it's still the same structure as our "RC5" Beta.

I keep forgetting that we have so many different "types" (US, INT, PC, MAC, etc.) of ArchiCAD that we are answering questions about.
David Larrew, AIA, GDLA, GSRC

Architectural Technology Specialist

a r c h i S O L U T I O N S



WIN7-10/ OSX 10.15.7

AC 5.1-25 USA
Djordje
Ace
David wrote:
Yeah, why does GS have to make two (or more) different program/library structures for the same (essentially) program!?

Karl, I just checked my "R1" release version of the US library... it's still the same structure as our "RC5" Beta.

I keep forgetting that we have so many different "types" (US, INT, PC, MAC, etc.) of ArchiCAD that we are answering questions about.
Sorry, David! My apologies.

Yes, we should include the Int or US or NZ or Martian version in addition to the numbers and the OS ... duh ...
Djordje



ArchiCAD since 4.55 ... 1995
HP Omen