Setting Materials Defaults

The material defaults determine the initial material settings for different objects. Setting the correct material defaults before beginning a project may help you save time. Material defaults can be accessed through the Default Settings dialog. For more information about defaults, see "Defaults & Preferences".

To set material defaults

Select Edit> Default Settings to open the Default Settings dialog.

There are a couple options. You can do either or both:

Select an object in the tree view and click the Edit button to open the defaults dialog for that object. The default dialogs for objects such as cabinets, windows, and doors have a Materials tab that allows you to set the material defaults for object components.

Select Materials> General Materials from the Default Settings dialog and click the Edit button to open the Material Defaults dialog. Here you can set the material defaults for many different objects.

Click Done to close the Default Settings dialog.

Once an object has been placed in a plan, the materials applied to it can be changed in a number of ways. To illustrate this we'll change materials from camera view and floor plan view.

If you are continuing from the previous tutorial, you may already have three views open, a floor plan view and two Render Full Camera

views; one of the master bedroom and another of the dining room. If you do not, go ahead and create a camera view of the master bedroom. See "To create a camera view" for more information.

If you'd like, you can tile these views so that they show simultaneously by selecting Window> Tile Vertically from the menu (Shift + F6). In this tutorial we'll use one view at a time.