Colourways

Colourways are a way to define and switch between multiple colour variants of your design — different coloured plastics on the same body, a product in three seasonal palettes — without duplicating geometry or rebuilding materials from scratch.

A colourway groups materials into a variant set. Each material in the set becomes one variant; a colourway tag on a variant labels it as "Option A", "Spring" or whatever name suits your workflow. Switching the active colourway on the Looks panel re-points every set to its matching tag at once.

Concepts

Term	Meaning
Material	One set of surface properties. Many faces can share one material.
Variant set	A named collection of materials that are colour alternatives for the same role (e.g. "Body Colour").
Variant	One material inside a set — the "Red" variant, the "Blue" variant.
Colourway tag	A label on a variant — "Option A", "Spring", etc. Applying a colourway on the Looks panel switches every set to whichever of its variants carries that tag.

Opening the Sets tab

1. Open the Material Editor (View ▸ Material). If the entry is greyed out, choose View ▸ Unlock Advanced UI first.
2. Click the Sets tab.

Creating a variant set

A material must be selected before a set can be created.

1. Select a part whose material will be the first variant.
2. On the Sets tab, the panel shows the hint "[material name] is not in a variant set." and a Create Set From Selection… button.
3. Click Create Set From Selection… — a set named Colour Set (then Colour Set 2, …) is created, seeded from the active material.
4. Type a name for the set in the Set name field and press Enter.

Sets tab layout (when in a set)

When the active material belongs to a set the Sets tab shows:

Set name

An editable field at the top. Change the text and press Enter to rename the set.

Variants

A card for each material in the set. Each card shows:

• Default-marker dot — click to make this variant the set default (tooltip: "Make this the default variant").
• Material name
• Switch — make this variant active on the assigned objects.
• Remove this variant from the set — remove this material from the set (the material itself is kept; only set membership is removed).
• Colourway tag chips — each tag the variant has been assigned, with Remove colourway tag beside it.
• Add a colourway tag — opens a dialog "Add Colourway" where you type a tag name (e.g. "Option A") and press OK.

Adding a material to the set

Below the variant cards, a dropdown lists materials not currently in any set. Choose one and click Add the chosen material as a variant to add it to the set. Only materials that are not already in a set appear in the list.

Switching section

Control	What it does
Sync Variant on All Objects (toggle)	On: switching a variant re-points every part using this set. Off: only the active slot switches.
Sync Group (text field)	Sets that share a group name switch together by variant position.

Detach and deactivate

• Detach Material — remove the active material from the set, leaving it as a standalone material.
• Deactivate Set — dissolve the entire set. Every variant becomes a standalone material; variant switching stops, but parts keep whatever material they currently show.

Variant switcher strip

When the active material belongs to a set, a Variant strip appears above the tab bar in the Material Editor. It shows:

• Set name — the name of the variant set
• ◀ (Previous variant) and ▶ (Next variant) arrows — step through the variants one at a time
• Variant dropdown — jump directly to any variant by name

Editing a variant's material

1. In the variant switcher strip, pick the variant you want to edit. Choosing a variant here also switches the parts to it — with Sync Variant on All Objects on, every part using the set is re-pointed.
2. Switch to the Surface tab (or Textures, Labels) and make your changes.

Changes apply only to that variant's material. Other variants are unaffected.

Tagging variants with colourway names

1. On a variant card, click Add a colourway tag.
2. In the Add Colourway dialog, type a tag name (e.g. "Option A") and press OK.
3. The tag chip appears on the card.

Tag the matching variant in each set with the same name — "Option A" in the Body set, "Option A" in the Trim set, and so on. When you switch the active colourway on the Looks panel, all sets update at once.

Switching between colourways

The active colourway is switched from the Looks panel:

• Colourway: dropdown — switches every set to the variant that carries the selected tag. If a set has no variant with that tag it falls back to that set's marked default variant. Default uses each set's marked default variant.

See Looks for the full Looks panel controls and for rendering every camera in every colourway.

Related

• Materials — base material controls
• Looks — colourway thumbnail grid and batch render
• Library — saving and reusing materials across documents