Learn how to effectively utilize physical and visual materials in Fusion 360 to create an accurate model. This guide provides a step-by-step process to change and apply different materials, from stainless steel to ABS plastic, to various components of a model.
Key Insights
- Physical materials in Fusion 360, such as stainless steel and ABS plastic, are utilized primarily when testing in the simulation workspace or entering the CAM workspace for 3D printing or machine tool paths, and can be directly applied to component assemblies.
- Visual materials, which can be modified in the appearance section, are automatically updated based on the physical materials applied unless an override is set. The guide demonstrates updating visual materials using wood solid and unfinished solid wood materials.
- Texture map controls can be used to modify the look of materials on specific components, such as making wood components look as though they were cut from different areas of a tree. It's important to note that material changes and texture map controls are not updated in the timeline, so users should remember when these changes were made.
In this video, we will look at the physical materials and visual materials in Fusion 360. If you will, please scroll down and find Step 10 Materials, and when you have opened your file, go ahead and hide your Data Panel.
You'll notice that because our default material is wood in this model, everything that we have created or brought in from the McMaster-Carr Library has been made out of the default material, which is wood. Our parts that are actually supposed to be wood are okay, but our lampshade and this bolt and washer need to be updated in order for our model to be accurate. So let's change the materials.
I will go to Modify, and first I will go to Physical Material. The Physical Material is especially used when testing in the Simulation workspace or entering the CAM workspace for 3D printing or machine tool paths. The Physical Material is not 100% necessary to update in our model, but it is nice to do so.
So first, let's zoom in, and we can see that these parts here are made with our Stainless Steel physical material. So I will orbit my model, grab my Stainless Steel material, and I can drop it directly onto one of my components, or open up my fastener assemblies, find Lampshade Fastener here, and drop it onto this component assembly to apply it to all sub-components. Next, let's go to Plastic, and find ABS Plastic, and drag it up into our “In This Design” window.
This will add it to our project, but not directly assign it to any components. Now, with my browser visible, I'm just moving the screen, I'll drag it directly onto my Lampshade component, and you'll see our lampshade update. You'll also notice that this cap had a Steel material applied as its Physical Material.
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I will take the ABS Plastic material and apply it directly to the cap to update its Physical Material. My physical materials look okay, so I can click Close, or press Escape. One thing to notice before I move on is that my physical materials have also updated the default Visual Materials for the components.
These components do not have a Visual Material override, so their Physical Material will show through. Let's go to Modify > Appearance to change some of our Visual Materials. We can see that ABS Plastic is still appearing in my model—and that’s right, because my Lampshade is still showing that ABS material.
We can also see there’s a Paint – Metallic – Red, and that was brought in, if I orbit my model, with my Lampshade Cap Assembly on the sleeve. So let's update some of these Visual Materials. I'm okay with most of the materials, except for my wood.
I'm going to go down to Wood > Solid and bring in an Unfinished Solid Wood material. You can see that I have 3D Pine already downloaded, but if it's not, just hit the arrow next to that material. I'll drag it into my model, and now I can see that I have two Pine materials, which reference my model materials. So instead of dropping this onto my exact materials one by one, I will drag and drop it on top of this icon to update those materials throughout my model.
You may get this warning that says the old material cannot be removed because it is the default material, and that’s because it is the default Physical Material when we build our objects. We could also go to Faces and apply materials directly onto an individual face, but for now, we are not going to do that. I press Escape to close my Visual Materials dialog box, and notice: materials are not updated in the timeline.
There is no feature change in the Timeline for materials, so remember when you applied them and when you updated those changes. The last thing I would like to do is edit the Texture Map Controls on my Visual Materials. Right now, it looks like every piece of my 3D wood was cut directly from the center of the same tree.
It’s okay that they look like they were cut from the same tree, but I’d like them to look like they were cut from different parts. So I will hover over one of my faces, right-click, and choose Texture Map Controls. You’ll see the Move and Rotate gizmo appear, and now, by moving my material around, this 3D texture will update, and it will look like it's being cut from a different part of the tree.
I will do this for all of the wood components in my model. You can also experiment with rotating your materials, but again, because this is a piece of wood, for all of my objects, I don't want to rotate the material too much or it won’t look realistic. That all looks pretty good, so I will return to my Home view and click OK.
Again, notice that in my Timeline, Texture Map Controls is not a saved feature. My model looks updated, so I will save my file, and in the next video, we will bring in the plug and the switch for our lampshade cord. I will see you in the next video.
