2009

Table Of Contents
1. The three buttons at the top determine what sort of material preview you get:
Click on the Standard Preview button to get a software generated photorealistic preview of
the material on the standard ball against checkered background, which is not interactive but will
show how the material will look when rendered photorealistically.
Click on the Active Preview button to get an OpenGL interactive preview of the material on
the standard ball against checkered background. This is updated interactively while you change
the parameters and will resemble the quality of material shown in NavisWorks during navigation,
but will not be as high a quality as the photorealistic render.
Click on the Main Window Preview button to close the preview window in the material
editor and instead preview the material on the item in the scene in NavisWorks's main navigation
window. This is updated interactively while you change the parameters and will be exactly the
material shown in NavisWorks during navigation, but will not be as high a quality as the
photorealistic render.
2. For a simple material, there is only a single Material tab on the material editor, whereas for a texture
material, whether procedural (generated from an algorithm) or bitmap (generated from an image),
there is an extra tab called Texture.
The Material tab contains simple parameters that affect the material's color, scale, shininess and so
on. In the case of the breeze block, there are parameters for the overall scale of the material as well
as a block's width and height, the blocks' color and mortar color, its roughness and reflectivity. On a
bitmap texture, you would also define where the image is that becomes the texture map in the Image
File Name text box (see Creating a texture using your own image). On a glassy material, other
factors would affect the transparency and refraction properties of the glass. Some of these factors will
not be apparent in the interactive OpenGL window and will have to be rendered with the Render
button to be seen.
The Texture tab contains parameters that specifically affect a texture material's texture mapping
properties, such as its rotation, offset (origin) and S- and T- (sometimes called U- and V-) scales.
These parameter values are applied in relation to an origin point, (see Advanced Materials for
more information). There are S- and T- Reflect check boxes, which will show the reflection of the
image in either (or both) of these axis. Finally there is an Offset Center check box, that repositions
the origin to the center of the image (again, see Advanced Materials for more information). When
using the Main Window Preview, texture changes can be made instantly allowing interactive
positioning of materials on an object.
3. At any time, click on the Apply button to apply the parameter edits to the material in the scene.
4. Click OK to keep the changes made or Cancel to discard any changes made (since the last time you
clicked Apply at least).
Creating a texture using your own image
1. From the Templates material archive, double click on the Plain Texture material. This will add the
material to the scene's palette and open the Material Editor.
Presenter Materials
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