About Material Properties

This section provides some general information on how to access material properties and on the type of data that is displayed depending on the method you choose.
  Four methods let you access material properties.
  • Properties command:
    Right-click the material in the specification tree then select Properties or, select Edit > Properties or, press Alt+Enter
  • xxx object > Definition contextual command:
    Right-click the material in the specification tree and select xxx object > Definition.
    Note that if the material you select is applied onto a part, you need to run the command twice to access the Properties dialog box (the first you run the command, you enter the Part Design workbench)
  • Double-click the material in the specification tree
  • Edit Material contextual command:
    Right-click the object onto which the material has been applied and select Material > Edit Material. This method avoids selecting the material in the specification tree and is especially useful when working in Full Screen mode, for instance.
    Note that this command is available from the Real Time Rendering workbench only.
  Whatever the method you choose, the Properties dialog box is displayed but, depending on the method, the content of the dialog box is not the same.

Properties command
  When accessing the Properties dialog box via the Properties command, the following information is displayed:
 
  This dialog box contains the following basic tabs:
  • Feature Properties
  • Rendering
  • Inheritance. This tab appears only when selecting a material that has been applied. If you select a material from the libray, this tab is not displayed
  • Analysis
  • Drawing
  • Composites.

In addition to these basic tabs, the More... button lets you access data from our partners.
When you click this button, a progress bar is displayed while loading the data:
 
  The display of these additional tabs is kept throughout your Version 5 session and the next time you access the Properties dialog box, the tabs will be displayed without having to click More....
 

Definition... contextual command
  When accessing the Properties dialog box via xxx object > Definition, the following information is displayed:
 
  This dialog box is identical to the one displayed when using Properties except for two things:
  • there is no More... button
  • you can manipulate the model in the geometry area while displaying the Properties dialog box (which is not the case with the Properties dialog box displayed via Properties).

However, if you clicked More...  when you accessed the dialog box via Properties, data from our partners are displayed when selecting xxx object > Definition.
 

Double-clicking the material
  The Properties dialog box you access when double-clicking the material from the specification tree is identical to the one displayed when selecting xxx object > Definition.
 

Edit Material contextual command
  In the Real Time Rendering workbench, the Properties dialog box you access using Material > Edit Material is identical to the one displayed using xxx object > Definition.

Do not forget that you need to select the material directly onto the object to be able to use this contextual command.