Replacing Materials

Material replacement behavior in SAP 3D Visual Enterprise Author depends on the following:

Current selection (zero, one, or more objects can be selected)
Hit objects (nothing or one object can be hit)
Command (Left vs right click, Replace Hit Material, or Paint Objects)

An explicit relationship is maintained between an entity and its instances. Visual representations of these instances can be different if they have any Material Replacement modifier attached to them, but conceptually they are still instances of the same entity.

Example

Consider the model of a car where three wheels out of four have the same appearance, and one has a different appearance. All four wheels are considered to be instances of the same entity, regardless of their appearance. The wheel with the different appearance just has a Material Replacement Modifier attached to it.

Features

The following tables illustrate the specific functionality associated with material replacement:

Left Click
	Was Anything Hit?
Is Anything Selected?		Yes	No
	Yes	Replace hit material with drag material on selected objects	Replace all materials with drag material on selected objects
	No	Replace hit material with drag material on ALL INSTANCES of the hit object (while also considering and respecting any existing per-instance Material Replacement). Hit object does not have Material Replacement: Instances without Material Replacement will change their appearance and will assume the drop material Instances with existing Material Replacement will retain their appearance, in accordance with their respective Material Replacement, but the source material in the replacement assumes that the drop material (target material), and therefore the final appearance, remains the same. Hit object does have Material Replacement: ALL instances, regardless of any existing Material Replacement applied to them, will change their appearance and assume the drop material. Any existing Material Replacement is dropped from all instances of the hit object.	Add drag material to scene

Right click + "Replace Hit Material"
	Was Anything Hit?
Is Anything Selected?		Yes	No
	Yes	Replace hit material with drag material on selected objects	Replace all materials with drag material on selected objects
	No	Replace hit material with drag material in entire scene	Add drag material to scene

Right click + "Paint Objects"
	Was Anything Hit?
Is Anything Selected?		Yes	No
	Yes	Replace hit material with drag material on selected objects	Replace all materials with drag material on selected objects
	No	Replace hit material with drag material on ALL INSTANCES of the hit object (while also considering and respecting any existing per-instance Material Replacement). Hit object does not have Material Replacement: Instances without Material Replacement will change their appearance and will assume the drop material Instances with existing Material Replacement will retain their appearance, in accordance with their respective Material Replacement, but the source material in the replacement assumes that the drop material (target material), and therefore the final appearance, remains the same. Hit object does have Material Replacement: ALL instances, regardless of any existing Material Replacement applied to them, will change their appearance and assume the drop material. Any existing Material Replacement is dropped from all instances of the hit object.	Add drag material to scene

Procedure

Drag a material from the Materials folder or Materials panel to the object in the scene, and do one of the following:

Click Replace Hit Material to replace the material for the selected object or objects.
Click Paint Objects to add the material to all objects sharing the original material.