Problem with Deck Railing Material

[Gayle Sanders]

I want deck and stair and railing to be a wood tone and balusters black. Material defaults for deck railing and railing are are wood tone rail and black balusters. Vector view displays correctly, but render view shows deck railing all woodtone (no black balusters). I have tried deleting deck railing walls and building new ones (plan view shows extra lines on both sides of the new railing wall). Deck railing default for baluster was initially wood tone. First I changed baluster material for each railing (no black balusters), then I changed deck railing/railing defaults. I have also defined black "balusters" in default settings/materials/general materials. A curved portion of the deck railing (around opening for tightly curved stairs) is not defined as a deck railing, but a railing. That does have the black balusters. I used deck railings not railings to define the deck because I wanted the advanced framing. How can I control the rendered color of deck railing?

[Allen Brown]

Gayle, have you tried double clicking on the deck wall, and change the materials in the materials tab of the wall dialog box? This is usually a good way to get the proper materials to show up in both render and vector.

Also, try to never use the material eye dropper to change the color of a wall.

[Allen42acj]

If you use a railing wall rather than the deck railing wall.The balusters can be a different material than the railing..

[Gayle Sanders]

Thanks for your replies. I did specify the different baluster/rail materials in the deck railing spcification dbx. The vector view shows two different materials, but the render view shows only one material for the balusters and rail. Allen C. states the big point here - railing walls allow different baluster/railing materials, but deck railings display only one material for balusters and rails in render views (a bug since the dbx allows specification of different materials for balusters/rails?). Do I have to delete the deck railings and build new wall railings in order to show the two materials? Will this mess up the advanced deck framing? Is there a better way?

[Gayle Sanders]

Changed all deck railing walls to railing walls and have different rails and balusters in render view. Did not impact advanced deck framing. Seems like a sw bug that deck railing dbx allows specification of different materials for rail and baluster, but shows only one material in a render view.