Edit materials
Adjust a 3D model's materials in a draft, then save them as a new version for review.
You can change the materials of an uploaded 3D model without going back to your 3D app: colors, surface values and textures, including the glTF extension layers such as clear coat or sheen. Changes are made in a draft that only your team's editors see, and become a new version when you save them as one.
Admins and editors can edit materials. Reviewers, and anyone on a review link, can look at a version's materials but never see a draft.
Open a material
There are three ways to reach a material:
- Properties tab: switch Asset to Material above the thumbnail, then pick a material from the list at the top.
- Outliner: select a material in the Materials section. The Properties tab and the outliner always show the same material.
- Viewport: right-click a mesh and choose Edit material. The inspector opens on the material that mesh is drawn with.
Edit in a draft
A version's materials are read-only. Choose Edit in draft to start editing. Each asset has one draft, shared by its editors.
- Edits show in the viewport as you make them. An M marks each changed field, and the outliner marks each material the draft changes.
- Choose Save Draft to keep your changes, or Discard to drop the ones you have not saved. Discard draft deletes the whole draft.
- Turn on Autosave beside the save buttons to save in the background after a short pause instead. The status beside it shows whether your changes are saved.
- While you work in a draft, the viewer menu's Save Defaults for This Draft, the starting camera and camera bookmarks save to the draft too. Reviewers keep seeing the version as it was.
If another editor saves the draft while you have unsaved changes, a notice lets you reload it. Your unsaved changes are kept on top of theirs.
Save as a new version
Choose Save as New Version to publish the draft. The new version uses the same model file as the version the draft started from, with your materials and starting defaults, and gets its own thumbnail. Reviewers are notified as they are for an upload, and can comment on and approve it like any other version.
Textures
Each texture slot lists the model's textures. Next to it:
- Channel (R, G, B or A) chooses which channel a single-value map, such as roughness or metalness, is read from.
- Invert reads one minus the value, for example to use a gloss map as roughness.
- The checker button shows the texture full size over the viewport, in color or one channel at a time.
Under Normal Map, turn on Flip Green Channel for normal maps made for DirectX. glTF models expect the OpenGL convention.
Outliner shortcuts
Right-click a material in the outliner to select every mesh that uses it. In a draft, the same menu can reset that material, or all materials, to the values in the file.
When a new version is uploaded
A draft moves to a newly uploaded version on its own when that version's materials line up with the draft's. If they do not, the draft asks for attention: keep working on the older model, or discard the draft.
Try changes in a local preview
The local preview has the same outliner and material editing. Changes there show in your browser only and are never saved.
Notes
- Material editing needs a wider screen, where the outliner can be shown.
- Editing pauses while two versions are compared side by side.