Does "Materials" have two meanings?
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I think I have discovered a confusion that may hide a very useful feature. The word "Material" seems to have two different meanings. If I go to Component Attributes and define a Material attribute for a component, say Material = Maple, I can use that attribute elsewhere. In Cutlist, for example, I can get a list of all my "Maple" components. Then if I go to Sketchup's Materials window and select a material color, say 0128_White, I can paint my maple component with white. If I do that, when I check the Material attribute with Component Attributes, it is still Maple. That's great! It's exactly what I wanted to do. I have a model with several physically different materials, some boards, some plywood, some MDF, etc. I want them all painted the same color without losing their underlying materials.
In addition, if I open one of my white maple components for editing and choose Reverse Faces, the chosen face shows the Maple color.
Are there two different kind of "Material" such that one of each kind can be applied to a component, or, as seems more likely, can any one material be applied to the component as a whole, while a second material of any kind can be applied to any or all of the faces of the component without interfering with the underlying component material?
Has this feature been clearly documented somewhere that I have missed? Is there some plan to remove the ambiguity in the word "Material" as it is used in Sketchup?
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If you paint a component with a material, all the faces inside that component which has Default material will inherit the components material. A very handy feature.
It means you can model a car, leave the body with Default material, and add all the rest - like tires, lights etc. Then when you place instances of that car component you can paint each instance with a different colour and the car body will reflect that.
I'm guessing this is what you are referring to.
Maybe a sample model, just to be sure we are talking about the same thing?
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