Assigning materials to a surface?

[Bob T]

We are trying to prepare a finish surface for a large commercial site, and we want to assign various materials to the different areas (pavement, concrete, rip-rap, etc.) to end up with a nice rendered 3d surface.

I see where you can assign materials to the different assembly pieces of a corridor, and where you can assign a material to the entire surface. Some areas of the surface are composed of corridors but a lot of it isn't.

What different options do we have to assign materials to the portions of the finish surface that isn't one of the corridors?

[shadygrafix]

Breaking apart the different surfaces with a border. Problem is the surface you think you are going to end up with rarely looks like what you want. But breaking it apart is about the only way to do it. Also, are you just making jpgs or 3d dwf? the 3d dwf will not plot the surface with a render unless you turn on the tin lines. good luck

[Bob T]

We will be viewing the drawing in NavisWorks 2009 and doing walk-thru's, fly over and under, showing the surface and also showing sanitary sewer, storm sewer, water lines to where they connect at the building.

We have the various pipes and structures shown with rendered materials pretty completely but aren't quite there with the surface.

[Bob T]

Okay, I think I'm on the right track now. As you indicated I need to break apart the surface in order to render the different areas with different render materials. Besides corridors and corridor surfaces I think I just need to make extensive use of grading groups, with surface generation of the grading groups allowing me to get the different areas rendered the way I want.

[david.zavislan]

You can apply different render materials to areas of a surface using Masks.

[Bob T]

Thanks David.

I've been doing some experimenting with surface masks. At first it seemed pretty promising, but it is presenting it's own issues to deal with. A simple little parking lot curb island needs to have the landscaped area rendered with one material, the curb rendered with another, and the surrounding pavement rendered with another. I know it can be done but it seems like how ever you do it there is a lot of work involved.

A lot of it is probably my inexperience with rendering surfaces. I've been working with grading and surfaces for a while but just recently needed to do a detailed rendered surface.

It reminds me of a cartoon I saw once where there's a few people oooing and ahhing at something really cool displayed on the monitor, and then one guy says: "Yeah that's pretty cool, but is it billable?" LOL.