Appearances, reset to default appearances

[AlexLachance]

Hey,

I've noticed that sometimes, SolidWorks likes to mess up appearances. For instance, we use colors to differentiate materials, and I have parts, which will show the correct color in the part, in it's assembly, but won't show the correct color in the sub-assembly.

Is there a way, from the sub-assembly, to sort of, reset all to default appearances? I know you can expand the Task Manager and remove any changes made to display states by a right click, but I haven't found anything relating to appearances.

Is it possible to reset appearances at an assembly level so that everything goes back to the color the part is?

[MJuric]

Hey,

I've noticed that sometimes, SolidWorks likes to mess up appearances. For instance, we use colors to differentiate materials, and I have parts, which will show the correct color in the part, in it's assembly, but won't show the correct color in the sub-assembly.

Is there a way, from the sub-assembly, to sort of, reset all to default appearances? I know you can expand the Task Manager and remove any changes made to display states by a right click, but I haven't found anything relating to appearances.

Is it possible to reset appearances at an assembly level so that everything goes back to the color the part is?

Not to Hijack, but is there some primer somewhere on appearances? I struggle with this everytime I use them which is not often. Seems like the appearance randomly show up or not at different levels depending on where you place them and how. I'm certain that isn't the case and there must be some hierarchy, but I don't use them enough to get a handle on it.

For instance if you put an appearance on a part in an assembly, that appearance does not seem to transfer to the part even though you apply it to the part. To me this would be like editing a hole in a part in an assembly and having it stay the original size in the part...so makes no sense.

[AlexLachance]

Not to Hijack, but is there some primer somewhere on appearances? I struggle with this everytime I use them which is not often. Seems like the appearance randomly show up or not at different levels depending on where you place them and how. I'm certain that isn't the case and there must be some hierarchy, but I don't use them enough to get a handle on it.

For instance if you put an appearance on a part in an assembly, that appearance does not seem to transfer to the part even though you apply it to the part. To me this would be like editing a hole in a part in an assembly and having it stay the original size in the part...so makes no sense.

Appearances are like display states. They transfer themselves upwards, but not downwards.

So if you set an appearance on a part, from an assembly, the appearance will follow with the assembly, but if the part is inserted anywhere else it will not have the appearance.

It gets hella tricky when you start having people who don't understand this mixed with people who do understand this.

Not sure I'm being very clear..?

Edit: For instance, we use appearances for materials as I spoke above, to differentiate different types of steels and aluminium and what not. So the appearance is always applied to the body, and follows through everywhere, unless someone overrides it with whatever appearances he desires, or SolidWorks acts up like it sometimes does

So when we overlook a trailer from the model, it's easy to know if something has the wrong material

[MJuric]

It gets hella tricky when you start having people who don't understand this mixed with people who do understand this.

Not sure I'm being very clear..?

I don't use appearances very often. About the only thing I use them regularly on is weldments where we show "Machined Surfaces" as a different color than the rest. That is always done in the part level anyway so I never paid much attention.

However on occasion when doing quotes and presentations I'll want to do something a bit more "Fancy pants" and then I try to add some appearances, always seems to be a struggle. I guess I just have to remember that I should add all the appearances in the part level and be done with it. It's just a whole lot easier to do in the assembly rather than opening up each individual part.

[AlexLachance]

I don't use appearances very often. About the only thing I use them regularly on is weldments where we show "Machined Surfaces" as a different color than the rest. That is always done in the part level anyway so I never paid much attention

Have a look at my edit, you might find a new use for appearances, we never used them before this.

However on occasion when doing quotes and presentations I'll want to do something a bit more "Fancy pants" and then I try to add some appearances, always seems to be a struggle. I guess I just have to remember that I should add all the appearances in the part level and be done with it. It's just a whole lot easier to do in the assembly rather than opening up each individual part.

Create an upper-level to whatever "master assembly" you have, and then add whatever colors you'd like. I'm sure that would be a lot less struggle, unless you're saying you have a lot of appearances to apply

[mike miller]

I don't use appearances very often. About the only thing I use them regularly on is weldments where we show "Machined Surfaces" as a different color than the rest. That is always done in the part level anyway so I never paid much attention.

However on occasion when doing quotes and presentations I'll want to do something a bit more "Fancy pants" and then I try to add some appearances, always seems to be a struggle. I guess I just have to remember that I should add all the appearances in the part level and be done with it. It's just a whole lot easier to do in the assembly rather than opening up each individual part.

Check out this video I just made. It shows how selecting the correct breadcrumb can propagate the appearance to the part level. It really is all about hierarchy and overrides, you just have to understand how it works. (One caveat, SWX struggles sometimes with keeping appearances inside Display States that are linked to configurations untangled. It can be a real headache some days...)

This is also a great read: https://dezignstuff.com/appearance-hierarchy/

[MJuric]

Have a look at my edit, you might find a new use for appearances, we never used them before this.


Create an upper-level to whatever "master assembly" you have, and then add whatever colors you'd like. I'm sure that would be a lot less struggle, unless you're saying you have a lot of appearances to apply

We had our VAR in here and one of the things he said effected large assembly performance was appearances. I've done some testing on this and from what little testing I've done it seems to make a significant difference. So in most cases we try to remove as many appearances as possible. Makes for a boring model but if it takes a model that takes 20 minutes to load and allows it to load in 19....I'm taking it :-)

[MJuric]

Check out this video I just made. It shows how selecting the correct breadcrumb can propagate the appearance to the part level. It really is all about hierarchy and overrides, you just have to understand how it works. (One caveat, SWX struggles sometimes with keeping appearances inside Display States that are linked to configurations untangled. It can be a real headache some days...)

This is also a great read: https://dezignstuff.com/appearance-hierarchy/

Makes sense I think I just need to use it more often to get the hang of it.

[Glenn Schroeder]

I've had occasional issues with appearances with the last several releases of SW and at least 2 different computers. I'll have an appearance in a Part, but it might or might not show up. See below. These two parts have the same appearance applied at the Part level. It shows up correctly on one of them but not the other.

I can click on a face and it comes back, but only until I click away.

[AlexLachance]

I've had occasional issues with appearances with the last several releases of SW and at least 2 different computers. I'll have an appearance in a Part, but it might or might not show up. See below. These two parts have the same appearance applied at the Part level. It shows up correctly on one of them but not the other.


image.png


I can click on a face and it comes back, but only until I click away.


image.png

We've had that on occasion when using parts with "custom" made appearances that use an image, for instance checker plate.

[SPerman]

Does anyone else have problems with Solidworks forgetting the custom appearance folder? I can set it and it will work fine for a while, and then all of a sudden that folder has been removed from the file location list.

[AlexLachance]

Does anyone else have problems with Solidworks forgetting the custom appearance folder? I can set it and it will work fine for a while, and then all of a sudden that folder has been removed from the file location list.

Never had that occur to me, but we don't use custom appearances much, so maybe I just didn't notice.