First time poster with a n00b question, so apologies in advance.
I’m trying to assign an object (imported from Rhino, and on its own layer there, with a material assigned) to a new layer in D5. That is, I have imported my Rhino model, and it comes in as a single object in the Object menu on the left. I have then created new layers in the Layer menu. I now want to select areas (each “part” of my model, which I want to apply different materials to) and put them on separate layers so that I can lock them, hide them, etc, the way you would in Rhino or Photoshop or whatever.
I’ve watched at least ten tutorial videos that tell me I just need to select a part of my model, and then that will appear in the Inspector menu where I should be able to change its layer using a dropdown menu. But this is simply not the case. When I select a part of my model, the Inspector does not show a layer but the Material Template (where I can assign materials to that part of the model without problems). What gives? How do I get to the Layer option in the Inspector? What am I doing wrong?
Welcome. Currently, Rhino does not support syncing/importing to D5 with layers. Rhino files will be defaulted to a whole when imported into D5.
If you hope each part can be individually selected after importing into D5, you need to distinguish the different materials in the modelling software first. Thanks for understanding.
Okay, that’s unfortunate but at least means I can stop banging my head against the desk trying to figure out why it’s not working as expected.
What would be the workaround you mention of distinguishing the materials and then selecting the materials? Or, rather, I can already do this but can I then assign those parts of the model (now textured with materials) to different layers, or is it simply not possible to use layers when importing from Rhino?
If the latter is the case, what other software options does this work with? Can I export my model to Sketchup, import the .skp file and make the layers work?
If you want to edit different parts singly, you can divide them into different model files and import them to D5 separately. You need to differentiate the materials in the modelling software at first and can reapply textures to them respectively after importing.
Sketchup LiveSync now supports exporting up to two layers in d5a format. You can try it.
