New Material Features in Autodesk Showcase 2009 R1

By Redwald Villanueva,
MCAD Solutions Engineer
Hagerman & Company

In releases prior to Autodesk Showcase 2009 R1, the materials library contained less than 100 pre-defined materials/textures. If you needed to customize and add new materials permanently to the library, you had to change the properties of a current material and then copy and paste it to its corresponding XML file found in the Support>Materials subfolder of Showcase. Even in the basic task of creating new or additional material libraries or categories, you cannot do so in the Showcase interface. Instead you also needed to copy, paste and edit an XML file to create a new one for it. Did I mention that you have to close and re-start the Showcase application to see the changes take effect?

The new Autodesk Showcase 2009 R1 offers several new features that would make customizing materials and/or material categories much easier. Additionally Autodesk Showcase 2009 R1 is now capable of real-time Ray Tracing rendering that would bring your imagery even more closely to the real thing. Let us reserve the Ray Tracing topic for another time. For this article, I will focus on covering Material-related features.

Extended Material Library. There are over 700 calibrated materials that have been added under the library “Extended Materials” which includes compatible real-world materials such as industrial metals, woods, plastics, glass and architectural materials. Chances are most of the materials we need to create realistic imagery are in this extended materials library. Using ready-made materials from a vast selection would reduce our dependency to create and customized materials.

For hands-on practice, follow these steps:

1. In an active scene, open the Materials panel (Overlay) by going to the Material pulldown menu then selecting Material. You can also just press “M” on the keyboard to do this.

2. On the Material Libraries section, expand the Extended Material Library by clicking on the Plus sign.

3. Expand a category of choice.

4. Select a set of geometries/objects on your scene.

5. Click on a material from the expanded category to apply that material.

6. Click on any open area on the scene to deselect the objects. You can visualize the applied material better on the particular object if that object is deselected.

Material Libraries. Should you require creating your own materials, materials can be edited and saved to personal libraries. You create a custom material by assigning a material in the current scene and then modifying the properties and name of that material and saving to your own library

Try these steps for some hands-on:

1. To create a custom material library, in an active scene, open the Materials panel. In the material libraries title bar, click Manage>Add Library. Browse for an existing folder location of your choice. (You can even create a new folder during this process. You can also rename the newly created library as needed.)

2. To create a custom category, in the Materials list, on any existing Library, right-click and select Add Category then give it a name.

3. Add the material to the In-Scene material list by dragging to it. You can add a generic material or an existing material that has close characteristics to what you want to achieve.

4. Right-click the said material and select properties to open the materials properties dialog box. (You can also use Ctrl+M as a shortcut).

5. Adjust the properties/settings for the material that suits your requirements. Examples of Material Properties parameters that you can adjust include Color, Highlight, Reflectivity, and Bumpiness. Within these parameters are sub-parameters that you can fine-tune.

6. Rename the material using Right-click, Rename.

7. To add the custom material to a custom category, right-click on it, then Save to Library>My Materials, and select the category of choice.

8. Optionally, you can now share these folders for other users to use.

Shared libraries can be added to insure consistent content usage across users and networks.

Try these steps for some hands-on:

1. To add a shared library, in the materials list on the material libraries title bar, click Manage>Add Library.

2. In the Browse for folder dialog box, select an existing shared folder that contains your custom materials.

Resizable Materials Interface. The materials interface can be resized to compress or expand the area of the screen it occupies. By resizing the overlay, you can save some real estate-graphics window space.

Try these steps for some hands-on:

1. In an active scene, open the Materials panel (Overlay) by going to the Material pulldown menu then selecting Material. You can also just press “M” on the keyboard to do this.

2. Click and drag the double-headed diagonal arrow on the lower-right of the Materials panel.

You can also manage the in-scene materials by using filters.

Try these steps for some hands-on:

1. In the In-Scene Materials title bar, click Manage, then select the pre-defined filters you want to use. You can also manage your list by deleting all unused materials in the scene.

I hope you now have a basic idea of how much easier it is in Showcase 2009 R1 to create your own custom materials and/or materials libraries/categories. Enjoy showcasing your designs or products by creating realistic imageries with Showcase. Happy Showcasing!