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Looks

The Looks panel lets you capture named snapshots of the document's material state (each called a look) and apply them again with a double-click. Open it from View ▸ Looks. If the entry is greyed out, choose View ▸ Unlock Advanced UI first.

Prerequisites​

Looks work on their own — you do not need variant sets or colourway tags to save and apply looks. To combine looks with colourway switching, see Colourways.

Panel layout​

The panel has four parts, top to bottom:

  1. Colourway: dropdown — switches every material set in the document to the chosen colourway as one undoable step. "Default" uses each set's own default variant.
  2. Look grid — small colour tiles, one per saved look. Each tile shows up to 8 distinct base colours from the captured materials (parts using library materials add no colour; an all-library look shows a neutral chip), so a lineup of CMF variants reads at a glance.
  3. Save Look and Delete buttons — Save Look captures the current material state as a new look; Delete removes the selected look immediately with no confirmation.
  4. Render All Looks → button — greyed out in the current build; see Rendering looks.

A hint below the buttons reads: "Double-click a look to apply it."

Saving a look​

Looks are stored in the document and travel with the file.

  1. Set up the materials on each part as you want to capture them.
  2. Click Save Look. A "Save Look" dialog appears with a Look name: field. Cancel or an empty name saves nothing. If a look with the same name already exists it is silently overwritten.
  3. A tile for the new look appears in the grid.

Applying a look​

Double-click a tile to apply that look. Every part's material returns to the state saved in that look. This is one undo step — Ctrl+Z restores the previous materials.

Rendering looks​

Batch rendering of saved looks is unavailable in the current build, so Render All Looks → is greyed out; hover over it for the reason. To render a look, double-click its tile to apply it, then render from the Render dock. To render every colourway from every saved camera, use Render ▸ CMF Looks ▸ Render All Cameras × Colourways → (see below).

Each shot is frozen when queued; see Render Queue.

Deleting a look​

Select a tile and click Delete. The look is removed immediately with no confirmation prompt.

Managing colourways alongside looks​

The Colourway: dropdown at the top of the panel provides quick access to all tagged colourways. Selecting a colourway there switches every material set's active variant as one undoable step. Use it to preview how the look will appear in each colourway before saving.

Note: colourway selection is not captured when you save a look. Only per-part material assignments and parameters are stored.

CMF Looks: match materials to part names​

Render ▸ CMF Looks provides rules for assigning finishes by part name, scene path or parent-group name. Use these rules when you want to reapply finishes to matching parts after an import. Saved Looks tiles capture material snapshots; CMF rules describe which parts should receive a material.

Write and apply rules​

  1. Open a document with the parts and materials you want to match.
  2. Choose Render ▸ CMF Looks ▸ Edit Rules… to open CMF Look Rules.
  3. Click Add Rule. A row appears at the bottom with Glob *, Match name and the first available material. Replace * with your pattern; for example, screw* matches part names starting with screw.
  4. Choose a material already present in the document. Rules are checked from the top and the first match wins, even if its material cannot be resolved. Rows cannot be moved: add specific rules before broad ones. To change their order, remove rows and add them again in the order required.
  5. Click OK to save the rules, then choose Render ▸ CMF Looks ▸ Apply Look. The status bar reports how many parts changed and any locked or unavailable parts skipped. Saving rules and applying them are separate undo steps.
ColumnMeaning
GlobPattern: * matches any span and ? matches one character. Rows with an empty pattern are discarded when saved.
Matchname uses the part name; path uses its full scene path; tag uses its immediate parent group's name.
MaterialMaterial name to assign. The field is editable, but typing a new name does not create that material.
ColourwayStores a colourway choice with the rule. The current Apply Look command does not use this column to filter rules.

Select a row and click Remove to delete it. Cancel leaves the stored rules unchanged. An unresolved first match does not fall through to a later rule: check its material name. If a captured library material is still fetching, wait and apply again; if the status says the library is unavailable, restore that connection first.

With no rules, Apply Look reports No CMF rules — capture or edit a Look first. If none match, it reports CMF Look: no parts matched the rules.

Capture an existing finish scheme​

Choose Render ▸ CMF Looks ▸ Capture Rules from Scene to replace the document's rules with rules derived from its current material assignments. The status bar reports the number captured; Ctrl+Z restores the previous rules.

Capture normally matches part names. Where identical names carry different materials, or a name contains * or ?, it uses scene paths to keep those assignments distinct. Review the captured rows before relying on them after a re-import that changes paths. The import dialog's Use Material Template option also uses CMF rules; see Importing models.

Rows captured from library finishes show an empty Material cell. Leave it empty to keep the rule pointing at the captured library finish.

Render camera and colourway combinations​

Save camera presets first, then choose Render ▸ CMF Looks ▸ Render All Cameras × Colourways →. The command opens the Render dock's Variants popover with every saved camera and every colourway ticked (Layers and Comps cleared), so the job count it shows is the full matrix. Nothing is queued yet: untick anything you do not want, then press Queue Up. Start the shots with Render All in the Render Queue.

Every ticked camera renders with every ticked colourway. A colourway pinned to a camera preset is not used here.

With no camera presets, the status bar asks you to save some in Render ▸ Camera Presets.