Adding Material

[Alfiejay]

I now have HDDeluxe7. I upgraded from 6. In 6, I could import textures to use as materials. Can I do this in 7? And if so, how? I don't see my textures or my materials listed in explorer.

[Kilgore Trout]

Try this:

First, put all of your textures that you want to use in a folder on your machine where you know they will always be. I like to keep mine under My Documents in a folder called Textures but you can keep them anywhere you want as long as you know how to find them.

Next, click with your right mouse button on the My Materials folder in the library browser. From the pop-up menu, choose "New->Folder" to create a new folder in your materials library. Give the folder an appropriate name for the materials you are going to put in it.

Next, click with your right mouse button on the new folder you just created. From the pop-up menu, choose "New->Material" to create a new library material. Give the material an appropriate name and then select the radio button for Texture. Now you can use the "Select" button to find the texture file you want to use as the material.

You can create as many new materials as you want and organize them into as many different folders as you want. You can also copy materials from the locked folders that ship with the program if you want to make changes to them. Once you have created a new material in the library, you can use it in any plan. If you make any changes to it in the library after you have used it in a plan, your plan version will not change.