Appearances
An appearance is how a material looks on a 3D page: the colour and finish of its outside and inside, what its cut edge shows (corrugated flutes, honeycomb, plies …), and how its creases and varnish show. The 3D page chooses one for the drawing's material automatically, and 3D › Material chooses another. The app comes with appearances for corrugated board, paperboard, rigid board, metals, plastics and rubber, wood, and apparel and textiles; you can change them and make your own.
The trades that make solids in 3D (see 3D modes) have appearances of their own too: stone (marble,
granite, quartz …), glass and mirror, foams, solid timbers, and carpets, with their own patterns (marble veins,
granite grains and flecks, carpet pile). Each layer can have its own: see Materials, measuring and
sections.
The appearances editor
File › Extensions › Appearances… opens the editor. The appearances are listed by category on the left; yours are in bold, marked (yours).
- The app's appearances are shown but can't be changed. Duplicate makes a new appearance of yours like the one shown (named "… (copy)", with an id of its own), to change into something new. Make My Own Copy makes one of yours with the same id: it is used instead of the app's from then on, everywhere the app's was (3D › Material, and drawings that chose it), so you can change how a built-in material looks. It is marked yours, instead of the app's.
- Delete… deletes one of yours, after asking. Deleting your copy of one of the app's brings the app's back.
- Save writes your changes. 3D › Material is made again and the 3D pages open are shown in the new look straight away. Closing the editor with changes not saved asks whether to save them.
The swatch on the right shows the outside (left), the inside (right) and the cut edge (below) as they are set: a guide to the colours, roughness and structure, not the 3D view's lighting. Fold the drawing in 3D to see it properly.
What can be changed
General
| Setting | What it is |
|---|---|
| Name, Category | As 3D › Material lists it, under its category. |
| For materials named | Words in material names it is chosen for, separated by commas (any case; a part of the name will do: BC double wall matches "BC double wall (7 mm)"). Where several match, the longest wins. |
| Thickness | In mm, used when the drawing has no T. |
| Grain | The direction of the flutes, fibres, warp or brushing in the flat drawing: vertical, horizontal, or an angle in degrees. |
Outside, Inside, Cut edge. The inside can be the same as the outside, and the cut edge the same as the inside; untick it to give it its own.
| Setting | Range | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Colour | Pick it, or type a CSS colour: #c8a46e, rgb(200, 164, 110) or a name (white, navy). |
|
| Second colour | The colour the pattern mixes in: a weave's weft, a check's band, wood's late grain. | |
| Roughness | 0 … 1 | 0 a mirror, 1 fully matt. |
| Metalness | 0 … 1 | 0 for non-metals, 1 for bare metal. |
| Specular | 0 … 1 | A non-metal's reflectance (0.5 is the usual 4 %). |
| Clear coat, its roughness | 0 … 1 | A clear coat on top: varnish, lacquer, lamination. |
| Sheen, its roughness | The soft rim light of cloth (velvet, fleece, cotton): a colour, or none. | |
| Anisotropy, its angle | −1 … 1, degrees | Highlights stretched along the grain: brushed metal, satin. |
| Opacity | 0 … 1 | 1 opaque … 0 invisible. |
| Transmission, Tint | 0 … 1 | How much light passes through (clear plastics), and the colour of that light and its shadow. |
| Reflections | 0 … 1 | How strongly it reflects the surroundings; left empty, worked out from roughness and metalness. |
| Pattern | A texture made at real size: fibres, mottle, ridges, weaves (plain, twill, satin, basket, herringbone, ripstop), knits (jersey, rib), fleece, felt, velvet, corduroy, suede, check, stripes, dots, leather, metals (brushed, hammered, spangle, perforated, tread, mesh), wood, cork, foam, carbon, sparkle, cells, or none. |
|
| Pattern size | mm | One repeat: a thread, a stitch, a cell, a hole's pitch. |
| Pattern relief, contrast | 0 … 1 | How much it stands up, and how much it varies the colour. |
| Pattern angle | degrees | Turned from the grain. |
What the cut edge shows
| Structure | Settings |
|---|---|
plain |
The cut edge's surface. |
corrugated |
Flutes from the outside in, by name (A B C E F G N K) or as pitch x height in mm: B is single wall, E B double wall, A C A triple wall. Liner and Medium paper thickness; the outside, inside and middle liner colours and the flute colour. Every layer is scaled so the board is as thick as the drawing says. |
honeycomb |
Cell size and Wall thickness; liner colours, and the flute colour for the walls. |
wrapped |
A core in paper (rigid boxes, foam board): Wrap thickness, the wrap and core colours. |
plies |
How many Plies (else worked out from the thickness); the core and flute colours for alternate plies. |
Finishing
| Setting | Range | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Crease grooves | 0 … 1 | How much the creases show as grooves on the inside; left empty, the material's. |
| Varnish gloss | 0 … 1 | How glossy its varnish is. |
Colours that can't be read, an empty name or a thickness that isn't more than 0 are said in red under the editor, and it can't be saved until they are put right.
Images, pattern settings and the files
Some settings are kept as they are and changed only in the files: photos (maps: a colour photo and a normal map),
artwork, foil, varnish, matt and emboss images (layers; a drawing's own finish layers add to them: see
Print finishes), and a pattern's own settings (a twill's over and under, a
check's width …). The editor keeps them when it saves.
Each appearance is in a JSON file in the Appearances folder of an Extensions folder: the app's, beside it, and
yours (File › Extensions › Open Extensions Folder). A file holds a list of appearances,
{ "appearances": [ { "id": "…", "name": "…", … } ] }, written with the same names as above in camel case
(color, color2, roughness, clearcoatRoughness, pattern: { "type", "scale", "relief", "contrast", "angle" },
structure, layers). The editor saves an appearance you duplicate in a file of its own in your folder, and saves
changes in the file it is in, keeping the file's other appearances and anything else in it. Settings left as they
would be anyway are left out of the file. An appearance in your folder with the same id as one of the app's is used
instead of it. The app's Appearances folder has a README describing every field.