An element's material properties are displayed in Rendered, Rendered Outline and Patterned mode. If you choose to edit an element’s material through its Appearance property page, you can select different materials for each of the element’s parts, rather than just a selected part. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a 2D view or 3D view.
To change an element’s material through the Appearance property page:
Access the element's properties.
Select the Appearance tab.
In the Components pane, select the component whose material you want to change.
In the Material area, click the Select button.
In the Materials dialog, select the group containing the desired material. If you want to choose a solid color, select the Paint group.
Select the material you want to use. The swatches in the preview windows update automatically. If you want to edit the material, click on one of the swatches to access the Edit Materials dialog.
Click OK to return to the Appearance page.
If you want to rotate the material on the element, enter an angle in the Rotation edit box, or use the arrows to scroll through a list of angles. This rotates the material in a clockwise direction.
To shift the material on the element (left, right, up or down), use the Position arrows.
To specify a custom tile size for the material, enable the Override tile size check box, then enter the desired tile height and width in the Height and Width edit boxes. Tile height refers to the height of one bitmap tile. The program uses tiled rendering to display images, meaning images are generated in pieces (tiles) vertically and horizontally. Changing the tile height of a brick material, for example, would make the bricks look taller. Changing the tile width would make the bricks look wider.
Note that the Override tile size option lets you customize the tile size for this instance only without creating a new material.
Select another component in the Components pane and select a material for that component.
When all your materials are defined, click OK.
Note: When you edit the material of an element in your drawing, the element’s material definition in the catalog does not change. The change only applies to the selected element. If you want to change the element’s properties in the catalog, see Editing Elements in a Catalog. Editing an element in a catalog affects all future insertions of that element in your drawing.