Part appearance changes during animation

[begemot]

Hello all,

I'm having a major headache with a simple animation I'm putting together in SolidWorks 2010.

The most important part of the animation is hiding several components in sequence. The appearance (color) of each component is also important. I defined the appearance of each part before I created the assembly I'm animating.

Here is the problem: every time I issue the "hide" command to a component, its predefined appearance gets overwritten by the default gray texture. Looking at the part properties, it seems that for some reason the assembly automatically assigns that texture at the highest appearance "tier" (body, feature, face, etc.) when I try to interact with the part during the animation. I've tried all I could think of to prevent this, but no luck.

I'd appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.

Begemot

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

What are your system specs?

 

[begemot]

System specs: 3.2 GHz Intel Xeon processor, 8 Gigs of RAM, NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 video card. Hope that is enough detail. I'm updating the driver on the video cards as I type this.

 

[begemot]

Oh, and I'm running Windows XP 64 bit

 

[Theophilus]

Are you hiding the part itself in this?

Also, are you using PhotoWorks materials in your animation? (If using PhotoWorks materials instead of stock SolidWorks materials, you won't get the parts to fade in or out--the appearance changes instantly.)



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[begemot]

I am hiding the part, several of them in sequence. I wasn't aware of the distinction between PhotoWorks and stock materials, but I guess I'm using the stock ones since I do get the fade in/out effect.

 

[begemot]

A new twist has developed, which only adds to my bewilderment.

I decided to build the animation as is, ignoring the color/appearance issue for now. After animating the 5th part, I discovered that the colors are being applied as intended, but only for 5th and subsequent parts. The beginning and middle of the animation is still totally gray.