Help! How to Unpaint Materials...

[WendyWelton]

We drew a project and used the material painter to change some of the siding. Now I want to redefine the material for that wall type and have all the walls take on a new siding material. Any wall that had the material painter used on it is refusing to cooperate. How do I unpaint?

Thanks in advance, Wendy

[John Pallett]

Hi Wendy --

Great question. Wall materials derive from all sorts of places, and when you 'spraycan' a wall it's not always clear what you've changed.

If you spray an exterior wall on the outside, you will change the material for the "Exterior Room". Select the "Exterior Room" by clicking just outside your exterior walls, and you can change the exterior wall material back to "Use Default".

Similarly, if you've sprayed materials on walls inside, you may need to change the room materials back to "Use Default" for the affected rooms.

Hope this helps.

[WendyWelton]

The project has an inset shed dormer - so the "exterior room" won't pick those walls up. I got the front one by selecting the crawl space in front of it, but I can't get at the cheek walls.

I seem to have a second non-painter problem as well. I've selected my other second floor walls and changed them to my new wall type, with red siding. They way they're that wall type, but still appear to be the old tan aluminum siding in views. I've selected the "exterior room" and told it to be the default - but annoyingly enough, it still lists the "default" as the tan aluminum, not the default for my wall style, which is now also the default wall style.

Any suggestions for my cheek walls and/or my stubborn tan siding?

Wendy

[WendyWelton]

Just to see, I tried changing "Siding 6" to be my new red claps. The side elevation now gives me a little triangle of the red claps up near the peak, and the rest stubbornly remains tan aluminum. Hmmmmm...

BYT, this is a Craftsman style bungalow, with the entire second floor under the roof, with inset shed dormers for headroom. I'm also trying to use a Pony Wall to get a different siding material up near the peak, and it seems to put in this little extra triangle and then yell at me about having more than one wall. Right now I'm just using an ordinary boring non-pony wall - to slay one dragon at a time.

Sigh.

Wendy

[Deastman]

Wendy I think you have to both set the exterior room material back to default and select the changed walls and set the wall material back to default before the material will revert. Also the camera may not refresh so try a new camera view to make sure.

I always save a copy of my plan if I need to use this tool to play with as I don't like the way it works now.

[mcqueenhomes]

When you double-click on the wall you get the wall spec dbx, which also has a materials tab as well as wall type. Select the materials tab and set the exterior wall surface to the material you want. Often this is what the paint can changes if nothing else works.

To try to avoid using the paint can, I normally use different wall types (duplicate with different siding textures).

[John Pallett]

You may also want to try rebuilding walls/floors/ceilings and see if that helps with your triangle.

[WendyWelton]

The "materials" tab on the wall spec dialogue box held the final key. I don't know why I didn't find it before. Well, actually I do know - everytime I opened the wall and looked at the "wall type" tab, it told me it was "Siding 6 Clap1", which then quite earnestly insisted that it's material was red clapboards. Sneaky little guy! I never got as far right as "materials". Sigh.

Then, for some reason, one of my cheek walls was showing me drywall, even though it's right side out... Finally figured out that the roof was stopping it, moved it 1/2"... Now all I have to do is figure out how to get my cheek wall, which "T"s into the end wall, to cover the 6" gap and get the division of my pony wall pushed and shoved around to kinda sorta follow the roof. I'm all wored out! But, at least I lernt sumpin.

Wendy

[WendyWelton]

Jason,

The different wall types, instead of the paint can, is exactly what I was trying to pull off, and almost have. I'm also trying to use a Pony wall on the second floor, so that I can have that top portion be a different siding and still be able to put little attic windows in and have the siding repair itself if I change the size or something. It may be an idea who's time has yet to come. You do a lot of Craftsman stuff - do you just use the polyline thingies? Am I just being stubborn?

John,

I've Rebuilt 42 times today - the triangle always comes back. It happens on the left side only, just under the peak, on each side of the building - and gives me a partial wall in the attic that corresponds. It shows up each time I rebuild - and always to the left of the centerline as you look at the gable end from the outside.

I tried building a new house, with no "history" in it, and couldn't repeat it - but I get it on this one every time, both sides! Weird huh?

Wendy

[mcqueenhomes]

Wendy,

I would have to see a picture of what you're trying to do to try to see if I can figure it out over here. I do know there are tricks in the roof designer toolkit to help fix dormers, and they do mostly work, although they are tricky, like the whole "stair railing dies into the wall" thing..

I don't normally do anything that complicated. I'm sort of curious now, if it's something I can figure out.

I usually just BS the walls on the inside for the exterior view, and then use another flavor of BS on them for the interior view if I need one.

Also, since my final product is usually an image, I don't sweat the tricky portions of the model if I know I can edit them out in the image afterwards. That is usually my answer when asked "how in the world did you fix that?". My 3rd place rendering even had two tricky areas I couldn't fix: a piece of wood floating beside the dormer over the roof, and a break in the gable fascia over the main front gable. The solution to removing both was a little PhotoStudio magic. I guess it's the artist in me; when I was in school I used to draw these by eyeball & hand.

I've used the pony walls to create two sidings on one wall (top and bottom) before but have not tried it on the second floor half-story. I'm not sure I would, either, since dormers usually involves pony walls and cutting walls for other purposes. I always use the molding pline for the trim band around the middle or bottom.

If you like you can send me a picture, although I leave tomorrow for a few days to get my rental house a roofing contractor (garage roof leaks like a sieve ). Maybe later I can use my experimental bungalow to try to figure it out. Frankly, I'd like the challenge!

[Kelly K]

This advice needed some updating (or maybe has been I just can't find it). At any rate I was not having any luck when I did a quick search. It was interesting to note the original questioner was Wendy. We are all newbies at some point until we ask enough questions.

I rarely use the material painter, so I am just not familiar with this tool because I have had nothing but trouble whenever I do because I am unfamiliar with this tool.

Apparently I painted a room, didn't realize it and was dumbfounded as to why a newly drawn wall would not show the cultured stone that it was supposed to. Turns out there is a simple solution, and I struggled unnecessarily. Simply choose the material painter check "paint with default" located at the lower left corner of the dbx and then paint. Embarrassing.

[sutcac]

OMG, thanks for this update Kelly. Luckily I know better now not to tear my hair out till I check here.

[WendyWelton]

Holy oldy batman! This was pretty funny. I think I asked this question my very first year using Chief!

[David J. Potter]

To recap this thread, in case anyone else finds it by "Search", the materials eyedropper and Painter places the new materials within the "Materials Tab" of each wall dialog so painted.

This action does not alter whatever the default material is, as set in "Wall Types - Define Wall Type - Exterior Material".

There is also a setting for "Exterior Wall" in "Edit - Default Settings - General Materials - Exterior Wall" which can give you "gray hair" until you figure out that you may have overlooked making it agree with what you are currently designing.

It is also well to make sure you understand the "Four Modes" the material eyedropper can be used with (study the reference manual and then practice until you thoroughly get the idea of the differences involved).

DJP

[dshall]

Quite frankly the problems that people have with the eye dropper tool mystifies me. This is one of the greatest tools in the program. I never....... let me repeat this, I never get something I do not expect to get. If you are having problems with the tool, then that is on you. It's like me trying to understand my wife, with a little effort on my part I understand what she needs, and then it is easy peasy. I have done some videos on the eyedropper tool, and if you would spend an hour reviewing them, you will understand from whence I come from. My advice, do not give up on this tool, I use it all the time and love it, it is vunderbar! Nuts, I have to now go to my 2 year old grandson's b"day party..... can life get any better? I hope so.