problem with materials assigned to wall components in xrefs

[Wayne Williamson]

Hi

I have an extremely large model that I have divided into several smaller files and x-referenced these into a composite file for final rendering. The smaller files all work well and are free of errors. However when I open the composite file the wall types with materials assigned to components are missing from the style manager and the materials are striped from them.
How can I either force a reload of the materials of reassign them to the wall components in the x-refs?

I am on build 255, architecture 2011 and windows7 all 64 bit.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I may need someone who knows something about ACA to get involved here. Generally speaking, nXt materials are just AutoCAD materials. The software really doesn't get in the way of things like material assignment during xref resolution. This process is entirely handled by AutoCAD and ACA. (There is a separate synch process that can cause our materials to lose some curcial information-- but I don't think that's involved here.)

[akinlolu olugboji]

Why not try the visretain variable and set it to 0.

[Wayne Williamson]

"Why not try the visretain variable and set it to 0."

It's a good idea but I've already detacted and reattached 1 of the files, it updated a couple items outside of those that I was concerned about but the wall components still appear gray and there appears to be no way to edit them when they are in a x-reference.

I'm inclined to agree with Roy this does appear to be an autocad issue, too bad - they never seem to be very responsive to any issues or problems that we have encountered in the past. I was hoping that I could get this resolved.

I'm no sure if I can get the entire file build as a single entity let alone rendering it. Hmmm....

Roy - any chance that you can get some information from them so that I at least know where to start?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Again-- I'll probably need some good ACA jockey to chime in here-- I don't have enough of a command of this product.

Normally you attach AutoCAD render materials to ACA materials using Style Manager. When you look in Style Manager do your xref'd ACA materials contain render materials?

You're also welcome to put together a simple example of this and send it to me (as simple as possible. ) I'd be happy to take a look at it.

[Wayne Williamson]

When you look at a file with materials attached through the style manager everything looks fine & works well. When you take that file & attach it as an x-reference in another file those entries in the style manager dissappear. I will quickly put together a simple example and send it shortly.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

http://www2.mcneel.com/upload/Upload.aspx
[e-mail] as the recipient.