Car-Seat Modeling from Concept Modeling to Visualization

FLORIAN COENEN: Hello, everybody. Thank you very much for joining my session. I really appreciate that you are interested in the car-seat modeling concept from concept to visualization. My name is Florian. I'm working as a technical marketing manager here at Autodesk. I'm working for Autodesk since nearly six years now. My background is industrial design. So I studied industrial design and worked in the automotive area and a bit in the consumer electronic field. So designing cell phones and all that stuff.

I want to show you today workflow, a concept modeling workflow of a car-seat. And this will be basically the guy what I'm talking about. This is a racing seat, basically. The concept seat for anybody who thinks, oh, that is a very uncomfortable seat, I guess you would never ever have seen the Lotus LE seat or something like this with a seat pad which is 3 millimeters thick. So that's a comfort seat, basically, compared to that.

I will show you generally the workflow, not from sketches, from a concept modeling. I'm using here SpeedForm. Basically, you can also use Maya, for example, so SpeedForm is using subDs like Maya as well. So it doesn't matter for me as an industrial designer. SpeedForm is very comfortable, as I have not too many tools in the software.

So I am getting in very fast into this software, as normally as an industrial designer, you're working with NURBS surfaces. I'm working now with subDs. So a polygon workflow is basically the complete opposite to that. And that can drive you really crazy, and you don't know how to model the stuff. And therefore I'm using SpeedForm, as I just have a handful of tools, and I can create and do design within SpeedForm.

After that, I will go into Alias for detailing purposes. So when it comes to, for example, define fillets or stuff like that, I'm using stitches. I will show you the stitch and seam tool. And then at the end, we are going into VRED for final visualization. I will just quickly give you an overview of the agenda, showing you three slides. And after that, I will go straight and directly into the software. I'm doing a pick-and-click session now after that till the very end so you don't get bored about too many PowerPoint slides today.

OK. Agenda-wise, SpeedForm here, I will show you how to arrange a reference image using the-- I'm showing you the new Pivot Point feature, which is very comfortable. I will show you how to model hard surfaces. So that in this case I will show how to model the aluminum frame of the seat. Then I will show you how to model soft surfaces. Basically, I mean the softer parts, the seat pad, for example, what to take care of that.

I will also show you what to take care of when switching to Alias. And at the end, there is also a troubleshooting thing. Sometimes it happens when you're converting subDs into NURBS surfaces. There is a certain error coming up, and I'll show you how to fix that so that you have a seamless workflow.

In Alias then, I'm showing you the Evaluation tool. As we are, of course, very interested in the surface quality, how good is the quality of the surfaces that I'm building up in SpeedForm? After that, I'm showing you the Surface Fillet tool with a new Explicit Control feature in, which is since the last version.

Then I'm showing you this Stitch and Seam tool, showing you what kind of stitches we can create there. There is also a new tool called Set Visual Normals for visualization. And I'm showing you what I do with materials from Alias to VRED and what to take care of. Then in VRED, I'm importing this stuff using the Asset materials. After that, I'm showing you how to assign materials, how to create material switches.

Then we will go to the UV Editor, creating UVs for UV textures. And I'll show you also how to use texture protection for adding decals and logos and all that stuff. And I will show you as well the real-time shadow capabilities in the open shell for HDRI environments. So that is basically it. And yeah, at the end, we can have some nice renderings like this and potentially another guy is coming in from telling you something about Netfabb in case we have the time to do that.

So I'm switching directly to SpeedForm. So how to start in SpeedForm. Of course, I need a sort of reference when going into this, when trying to model a seat. I'm very comfortable just having a rough proportion thing, what is the size? Therefore, I'm using that man. And after that, I will import my image that I have created. So I'm going to image this background canvas, and I'm searching for the site image. And I'm selecting that image. Just a second. And this is the image now. So here in the background--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

FLORIAN COENEN: Oh, sorry. Just have to go into-- now it's better, I guess. So OK. I will go back. So I'm starting here with SpeedForm. And as you can see, I have here a little character so that I can see the size of the object that will happen, and I'm going to background canvas now. And I'm searching for a site image. Just select the image. And as you can see, it is showing up here in my scene.

And now the first task is how to resize it in a correct way. As you can see, the character here, this man, is really tiny, and the image is super big. So I can switch that first. And normally what we are doing, we are scaling it down, then we are putting it into the place. Then we are trying to scale that down again just to get the right position and size.

But nowadays, we have a new feature. This is called Start, Set, Pivot here. And as soon as I'm clicking that, the pivot point is stuck to my cursor. And I can place the cursor on a sort of reference point. So I have here a reference point. This is the point 00 from the side.

And as soon as I have clicked on that, I can rescale that around that pivot, which makes creation and setting up the image to the right size much easier. So I'm pretty fast in setting that into the right direction. So like here, we have here the 00 point, and then I have just to rescale that, and I'm basically done.

So this is the new feature. So I'm basically done with setting up my scene, and I will show you now how to model a frame. The frame will look like that here. And I'm hiding that and showing you how I'm doing that from scratch. So I will go into my site for you again. And we will create here a sketch. You can also use a plane if you want.

So start with a surface. Right now, I'm doing just a line. I have to click on a plane where to draw on, and I'm drawing here this line. And then I'm basically done with the line. After that, you have to go to create-- or hang on, I just have to stop the sketching first, and then I have to go in and create and extrude that guy here. So I'm extruding that. And I can subdivide it a little bit with using that slider, using maybe three or so.

And then I can have a look onto the reference image of the top view to see if I'm in the right position. That seems to be good for me. And after that, I'm selecting here these two little guys and then extruding a bit further more. It's just pressing out and moving the object, and I can extrude basically my surfaces.

And then let's just quickly go into the side view to align that up with the sides, pressing out again, move that around. I normally would-- I'm doing now in that stage, as you can see, I'm here in a smoothed mode. So the surfaces are smoothed out. Pressing button 1 shows me the Box Mode basically so I have a better idea in understanding what is happening in the background with the surfaces.

And I will place basically in Box Mode the surfaces or here the points to make it look nicer. So just a second. So after that, I can turn that around a bit. So as you can see, I'm just using Alt and the Move tool to create basically my object.

And now I have two possibilities. So I want to close here that gap a little bit. Either I'm using here a tool that is called Bridge. It's here under Create Bridge. So I just have to click on Bridge and select the areas here and press OK, and it creates for me a surface. Another nice way, what I also like is using the Weld Vertice tool so I can weld them together in order to create here that kind of frame now.

And in that phase, I'm going back to the Smooth Mode, and then I can-- normally, I'm playing around with trying to find the right shape, trying to find the right proportions, to find a nice line. This could sometimes take a while, as normally I'm really trying to do-- straighten this thing-- I'm really trying to do the design here in SpeedForm and just having some rough sketches, just some five-minute sketches, and that is it.

And then I can explore here my design directly in 3D. So I will try to make that a bit more smooth. As you can see, it is a bit edgy right now, and the curves are a bit wobbling. So I can refine that a little bit. And after that, I am basically done.

And these guys here, these three, I don't need them right now. But I can use them as underlaying surfaces for my pad. So I will delete them. But before that, I'm doing a Control-C and doing a Control-V again. So as we have seen, a new body has been created. I will hide that body. And these three guys here, I can delete now. And I have now two separate bodies.

So I'm taking care of that frame right now. And the next thing, let's say I'm finished with finding my form, with finding my proportions and all that, I want to create basically a body, as I only have here some surfaces right now, and creating a body from out of this is pretty easy. You just have to go to Create, Thicken. And now I have to select something here in that dialog. It tells me T-spline body, no selection. So I have to select that body and can move that into a specific direction.

You know what? I just forgot something. I will cancel that. Before I'm doing this, as you can see, I'm just creating half of the seat. I will duplicate the seat or mirror it. So I'm using the Symmetry tool, Mirror Duplicate. And as soon as I have done that, you will recognize the symmetry has been built on. And this is basically it. I Have to press OK. And now everything that I'm doing on the left side, I'm doing here on the right side as well. So it's pretty easy to model a complete object.

Switching back to the Thicken tool, I can use that slider to make it thick or I can use basically a numerical value. And mine is 25, and I already have a sort of frame. What you can see normally, so when going into the Smooth Mode by pressing number 3 on your keyboard, or here's the Box More, pressing number 1, I can see I have still some hard edges.

And these hard edges are because these are so-called crease edges. I can also try to uncrease them. Just select them by doing a double-click and doing a right-click, Uncrease Edge. And as you can see, everything is smoothed out. I can do this with the other ones as well, but I want to have basically a hard edge here. And therefore, I'm cancelling that.

The next thing is I want to create here a bit of, like you can see here in the image, a sort of feature line here. And therefore I'm using the Bevel tool, bevelling out that thing. So you also have to double-click on that. And you can refine it using the Bevel Edge. And here on the Bevel Edge tool, I also have a little slider, which I can move onto create that bevel.

We have here also a new option available in the Bevel tool, which I can put on and off the relative offset. The relative offset means nothing else than here I'm-- let's say I'm on 0 to 5 and see where that 5 means here, I'm half of that edge and half of that edge. That is relative. The absolute offset is basically that one. So it's a bit different and really a good improvement. I'm using here right now the relative one, and 0.5 seems to be fine for me. And as you can see, I have now created a nice feature line.

So when going back to Box Mode, I can see here some arrows. I don't know what happened here. Maybe I have to select here these surfaces, move them a bit back and that here as well to make it nice. So we are here now. So I'm basically doing now design again to create the flow of my surfaces. And I can play around with that forever. So I will skip that. You can imagine that you can do here and find new forms, find new proportions, and all that stuff.

So now we are basically ready with the frame. But as you can see, we have here still hard edges. And sometimes I want to have some fillets, what you would say in Alias. But I would use Alias Filler tool only for my main fillets. So basically for that fillet. This is visible fillet. I want to do afterwards in Alias a quarter fillet to it to have a nice highlight.

Potentially these fill these here as well. All the other edges, I can bevel here without any issue, directly in SpeedForm, as it's just a one-click thing, clicking to it. It creates an Edge Loop selection all the way around. And I can use here the edge bevel tool again.

But before I do that, we can see, we have here, as I already mentioned, we have here a crease edge, and I want to uncrease that before. Uncrease, otherwise I'm getting a double-crease edge. Now I can go to the Bevel functionality again. Playing around with the slide. I'm trying to do really a tiny fillet. And as you can see, it creates here a nice highlight and a little fillet, and that's basically it. And I will take care of, as I mentioned, these fillets or edges later on in Alias.

OK. The next one is how to model a soft surface. Therefore, I'm showing you the seat pad. At the end, it will look like this. You can see here all these seat pads, they look a bit more softer-- and how to do that and what to take care of. I would take out these guys here again, will do a Copy and a Paste. And here under body and new body is being created. And let's trip that out by just doing an isolation. And I can isolate that and doing, first of all, a duplicate mirror again so I have the complete seat tab pad.

So next thing is how to create that. I need to thicken that as well. Going to Create, Thicken, and selecting my guy. And let's say I'm using something like this-- 25. Do it numerically, and I have a rough seat pad, but it's still very edgy. And this is because, of course, we have here already or still some crease edges, and I want to delete these crease edges to make it more soft. Uncrease Edge. What you can see, instantly it will soften out the thing. I can do a Repeat Uncrease Edge here on the other side as well. Press OK. And it gives me now a better and nicer softness here.

And now I want to create here a fillet around for the stitches at the end. I will create a stitch in Alias, and I have to take care of a specific point here. I will show you in a second. We'll do here a bevel. No. Hang on. This is potentially a bit too smooth. I will switch to the Box Mode. And as I can see, oh, I have here really a bad surface. Will basically fix that a little bit to make it nicer. And I also want to have here a bevel. Doing a non-relative offset. Press OK.

And here, basically the same, bevelling it out. And let's have a look onto the subD model. It looks much better now. And now I want to create here, from out of my selection, I have here an edge loop still, another bevel that will go all the way around. And with that bevel, I will use additional segment. I will go to 2, and I explain you why when doing that.

Of course, I can see I still have here some creased edges in there. Too hard. I want to make them soft can. Uncrease them. Press OK. Double-click that. Uncrease them. Where is it again? Here. And the thing is, in Alias when using a Stitch and Seam tool, I need to have a continuity all around the seat pad.

So this continuity is shown here when doing the selection when having an edge loop. So as soon as I'm just double-clicking on it and getting a selection all the way around, I know I have a consistency of the edges all the way around. And this is absolutely needed for working with the Stitch and Seam tool at the end.

OK. Now I can see here I have some distortions. This looks not really nice, and this is because I have here a surface that has more than four sides. So working in SpeedForm with so-called quads, so four-sided polygons, is really recommended. You cannot do this every time, but you can make the flow of the surface much nicer if you are using only quads. So therefore, I'm trying to get a quad out of that and how can I do that? I can go to Refine and insert a point. And I will insert it here and here, here, and here. Press Enter.

And now I have created here a little quad, here a quad, here a quad. Let's go to the Smooth Mode, and this area looks much nicer now. We'll have to do this on this area as well. So I go back to my Box Mode and doing an Insert Point from here. I can also do from here to there in one go. And it will create all the points in between automatically.

So now let's go to the Smooth Mode, and you see it is much better. But we still have here some, ya, let's say the surface is here a really flat and straight surface, but a seat pad-- leather seat pad or fabric seat pad is potentially a bit wobbling, and therefore you can play around with that forever if you want. So you just have to go move this point potentially a little bit up and down or what I also would do is I would insert more points. Therefore, I can use Insert Edge Ring.

And as you can see, I'm inserting here now a ring and another one. It really depends on how many-- how fine and detailed you want to have that at the end. And now I have much more points that I can move a little bit up and down to make it look a bit more realistic. So here you can also play around forever, but I guess you have the idea. The important bit here is that we have an edge loop at the end for using in Alias for having a seamless flow of our stitches.

So this is basically it. And we're going now back to the un-isolation thing. You will have a good idea of what is happening and how to create basically that seat. It doesn't take too long. You can potentially copy/paste the single bodies out and move them into the right direction or you can play around pretty easy with different patterns like here to get your design concepts and design ideas.

OK. That was basically it in SpeedForm. The next thing, when now switching to Alias, is we are using here subDs, which is a Maya thing as well. But this has to be converted into a NURBS surface at the end to be used in Alias. So when I'm just doing a file export, S wire file here, it will get automatic-- a calculation will be started to convert this automatically into NURBS surfaces.

It is basically the same. We have here in SpeedForm several modes. This Calc Mode, the Detailing Mode, and the Rendering Mode. Here in Detailing Mode, you can also add fillets on a body, for example, like in Inventor or something like that. For me as a designer, it's always a question when should I switch to Alias and when not?

I made, for me, the decision I'm trying to do it as rough as possible in the Detailing Mode, as I'm more comfortable using Alias. I'm not using the Detailing Mode in SpeedForm. You can do that if you want to. I use the detailing in Alias. And as you can see, oh, I have here some errors. T-spline model failed to convert. This is basically just, by the way, an old message. It's not T-splines. It's subDs under the hood, and I have to return to make it look nice.

So as I can see here, let's strip out these two buddies here. I have here two highlighted objects with arrows. And these objects have these little icons. And I will have a look onto that body here. We'll go to the isolation mode, and we'll see where to find that by just clicking onto that little icon. The error message comes up, and I can see here is something not really correct. And this is the reason why SpeedForm cannot convert this into a NURBS surface. And therefore I have to fix that.

So what to do? When fixing that, I will have to look onto this structure behind, so onto the Box Mode, pressing 1. And as I can see, aha, I have here a surface or a polygon that is also not a quad, and therefore I can potentially refine that just by inserting a point. Again, inserting here and there, pressing Space, then repeat that. Doing this here and here again, pressing Space.

I will go back to this Smooth Mode again. And you can see it seems to be a bit better, but I guess it's on the other side here as well. So therefore I'm going into the box mode again, just repeating the Insert Point thing here on that side. Let's ensure that I'm on the right area, that area, pressing Space, repeat that again, pressing Space.

And when going into the subD mode again, it looks really, really nice. So then I have to press on the conversion, and it seems error removed, T-spline body to VRED. So it tells me I can convert that into a NURBS surface. So I can use that in Alias at the end. So I say Yes to that. I can convert that into a body and that's basically it.

I have another error here, but this is basically the same. I don't want to repeat that. I guess you can imagine how to do that. And after that, you will not have any problems. As soon as you take care of these icons, you can instantly export this as a wire file and then use that later on in Alias. So let's switch to Alias then. We have created this wire file now. And what to use now?

So the next thing is I'm super interested in the surface quality that I can achieve with the subDs with the SpeedForm model into Alias. And therefore, let's strip that out a bit. Going to the Hide Unselected. So let's have a look onto the surfaces by going into the evaluation area. Here, we have a right-click continuity, surface continuity. This is basically also-- this icon here, I'm more comfortable with doing the right-click and using that. So surface continuity. And we're checking that for G2 curvature continuity, pressing OK.

Maybe I should go to the Wireframe Mode to ensure that I don't have any underlying surfaces. And what I can see is a result that seems to be pretty nice. Everything has a G3 continuity. Of course, not these guys here. These are the crease edges. These have, of course, just a positional thing. But everything else is here under G2. So it is super easy for me to work with the SpeedForm model now in Alias. We have here perfect NURBS surfaces.

I'm deleting the locators again. And the next thing is I want to create a surface fillet. Therefore, normally in Alias, we also used to work with symmetry. So I just have to create the symmetry object, because I can better charge the design when having both of them in SpeedForm. But I don't need that here. Therefore, I'm picking all the surfaces on one side and deleting them. It's basically not needed.

And then I can go to the surface fillets. Yeah. I just need, as I'm here in the conceptual phase, G1 tangency is absolutely OK for me. As I mentioned, I'm using here the explicit control features from AutoStudio. What you already know is the explicit thing, and let's have a look how that looks like. So when creating here a fillet, I have to select all these guys.

This is also a reason why I would prefer to do fillets in SpeedForm as much as possible, as I have just-- I can basically create a fillet in SpeedForm with one click, and here in the Alias, I have to click all the surfaces-- select all the surfaces that have to be in that calculation. So that process is, of course, a bit slower.

And therefore, I only want to use that for the main surfaces to get the right and main highlights that are necessary for my design. As here, I can have better control. I'm using here a [INAUDIBLE] filler and not a radius, and therefore my highlight will look much better, much nicer at the end.

That is basically it. I can build up that surface or that fillet. And this is also a new feature that is already shown here. We have here the intercontinuity. I can also check the continuity from the fillet to the outer surfaces. But now I can check the continuity between each surface-- between each fillet surface-- which is pretty good. So I can see that. And now let's have a look onto that guy here, for example. This surface is created. I have here a degree of 5, 3.

Let's have a look onto this. This is also a 5, 3. Of course, because I have the explicit control which gives me 5, 3. But potentially, when exactly looking onto these surfaces, maybe that guy here, that guy seems to be more flat than this one. And potentially, I need a much lower degree on that surface, which is more flat. And therefore, I can use maybe a much lower degree. And therefore, I will go into the fillet controls again and show you here the Maximum Span and Degree option. And this gives me-- I can update that.

The possibility now to have as less degrees as possible in Alias, which I definitely love. OK. It is not really necessary in a conceptual phase, just wanted to show you here the new feature, definitely. And as you can see, I have here a-- let's put that on, select that 5, 3. 5, 3. I haven't accepted that. Maximum span degree.

And I have to update or let's say go to 6, 3, then it's potentially more obvious what I mean with the surfaces. So I'm selecting them, and I have here a 5, 3 and a 6, 3. So it is automatically creating the lowest degree of the fillets that are necessary here for the calculation. Good.

So I can play around with that and create other surface fillets. For example, that one, I can imagine that you know what I'm talking about here. So let's go to the Stitch and Seam tool now. Therefore, I make everything else visible. Pick object. I'm picking that guy here. Potentially, if you are importing the subDs from SpeedForm, everything will be grouped into one group. You have to ungroup it before. I have already done that.

So you basically edit group or ungroup to be able to pick only the one. OK. Hide also, unselect it. And what I also want to do is to make the process here a bit faster. I'm disabling or deleting all that stuff on the left side or on the right side to make my selection process a bit faster.

Normally, I would recommend to you to use the right side as well, as I want to have an edge loop all the way around. As when using the Stitch and Seam too, the stitches will be more seamless when they are all the way around and you're getting a nicer look. But that really depends on how realistic you want to go.

OK. Using the Stitch and Seam tool, we have here different options in the Stitch and Seam tool. We have here different types. We have a French deck, baseball join, and none. So I will quickly show you that. I have created some examples to show you what it is.

So first thing is here, the French deck, which I'm using. This is the classical one. Definitely, we have basically a bullock and a groove from two sides and also the stitches from two sides. So we can have a, yeah, setting-wise, I don't want to explain you that completely in detail and do tests all the way around. You have to do that, as this can take a bit longer.

We have here many different settings. So with the seam offset, we have a seam depth, and a seam shape. We can also have a seam gap, which is sometimes really good. Then we can flip the sites. Then we have a bullock. We can create a bolluck on the left or on the other side as well, as well for the groove.

And we have here the stitches parameters. So the stitches diameter, the length, the spacing, and the angle. As you can see, they are here a little bit angled. I like that. And there's also a chain select. And this is important. I already have taken care of the continuity, the edge flow all the way around to ensure that the stitch will work all the way around and therefore chain select is pretty helpful.

Next thing is the deck seam. This is this one here. Also a little bit angled stitches. Then we have here a baseball seam. Doesn't that look nice? I like that. It looks really rough. Potentially, I should have used that for the seat. Then we have a join without stitches, which is also a very common thing, definitely. And we have last but not least, the no seam, only stitches. Don't know if there is any example outside of that, if that is used.

So these are the different seams, and let's go to my other stage here. Just creating one seam. And I just have to select here the one side of the area. And as you can see, now I have this edge loop already. So I have the continuity all the way around for using this with one-click workflow. So then I have to accept it by pressing the Spacebar. And then I have to select all the other surfaces. Just a second. OK. I'm basically done. Pressing Build, which will take a while. Not too long here in my case.

In case the screen will get black, that's a good sign. So Alias is working heavily on that, and when I mean heavily, it is really heavily, as we are creating here so many surfaces. You will also recognize that when looking onto the data size. So the file size will increase massively. To give you a little overview, so the rough seat that we have imported without seams is a wire file that is between 5 and 10 megabytes.

When I have seamed every single pad, it will be 50 megabytes at the end. So it increases massively. But of course, we have here hundreds of surfaces created. That is definitely not a surprise. I'm surprised here right now, as I have created this seam by mistake onto the other side. And I don't want to have that. Easily, we have here a little guy here these, this arrow, this arrow I can just click on that. This is pointing to the other direction.

This is also here, a little-- I can flip surface side, and I have to update that. Press Space, and then I have to wait again. See the black screen sometimes, sometimes not. We're working on that to potentially get a better user experience for that. But it's not a big deal, basically. OK. Let's shade that a little bit, and maybe toggle the model off. Maybe hand pick, and as you can see, it creates here a really nice-looking stitch. Of course, everything can be much better, but for me, for a concept model, that is definitely a nice thing. And it looks much more realistic at the end.

I'll just have a look onto my PowerPoint slides, onto the agenda, not to lose something here. Let's have a look. Surface fillets, Stitch and Seem tool. So OK, we are working with the normals. Let's have a look onto the normals. So we have here also a new feature. I believe it's a new feature from the 2016 version or '17. So under Surface Edit, we have here now a visual normal. And these visual normals give me a feedback of the visual normals and not the geometrical normals.

We have here two different normal types. The geometrical are used for building up the geometry, and we can differ now between a visual normal. The visual normal, if this is set correct, VRED will recognize the visual normals, and everything is perfectly done. You don't have to take care of any normal errors more in VRED.

And this is basically a pretty simple thing. As soon as I see here a yellow surface, I know that a visual normal is in the wrong direction. I just have to select that and everything is done. I can do a square selection. It will fix this from my camera angle, and I can fix the whole seat in one go, basically. And then I'm done.

Why do we have that? When having a look onto the geometrical normals, I still have that geometrical normals on the other side. If I would switch them as well-- let's try that out-- I would lose here my construction history. And this is definitely not the thing that I want to have. So it's really good to have a difference between visual normals and the geometrical normals. So then I can switch easily back to Alias and work on that change something. I have still the construction history. And I'm pretty fast. So therefore, I'm pressing No. I don't want to use that. And this is basically it.

Next thing is the material, which is a pretty simple thing here. This is a, yeah, normally when I'm using VRED-- I have most of the time when using it a bit longer, I have created a material library of my material assets. And therefore, I know already the names of the materials, and I don't want to create here materials or set the right materials. I just want to create or assign a shader that has the existing material name from out of my VRED assets.

So I just have to go into VRED, go to Scene, Asset Manager, in case I don't know this by heart, and have a look onto a specific project here. And I can see here the names. Leather black, fabric seam, aluminum frame. In my case, it's German aluminum frame. And that is it. So I just go in here into the Multilister and creating here a material that has basically the right name, leather black, and I'm basically done.

Let's assign that. I'm toggling that on. And I should see this when doing hardware shade. Oh, I left the seam, but I guess you know what I'm talking about. OK. This is then basically the complete workflow. I can create all my stitches and seams and in that case-- or can add other fillets and all that stuff. I have basically here an other seat which is then the final seat. It differs not too much from the others. Just created here. I have some little details as well, like this, and here a logo thing. And that is basically it.

So then I can save that out as my wire file. And then I will go straight and directly into VRED. And the only thing I have to take care of now with the materials is a pretty easy thing, just going to the seat. And I'm adding that. Sorry. I'm trying to add that. I have here already this seat in.

Let's have a look. I will delete that. Then I'm getting the-- wondering what is happening. Normally, I'm getting a completely different import option. Books. Let's get do it like this. I'm creating a new scene. Scene start. Oh, sorry. I have used the VPB file. That is not working. Of course not. OK. I'm using here seat, the VRED file or the wire file, the Alias file, then it's working much better, definitely. And what I have to take care of here to get the materials automatically applied onto the object is I have to go to scene, to this scene type here, and say apply materials from Asset Manager, and instantly my Asset Manager is opening up. And I can select the folder of my project where the related materials are in. And as soon as I have done that, I can also close that and press OK.

As my scene is 50 megabytes, big, I don't want to import that, as it takes potentially two or three minutes. Therefore, I'm opening up the VPB file again, which is definitely much faster. And then you get instantly the materials assigned to, and you have already a more or less nice-looking or nice look and feel of the object.

OK. Let's quickly change to the agenda. I don't want to lose something. So these are the asset materials. And now I'm showing you how to create material switchers and assign materials. So we have here the Material Editor, and let's say I'm selecting here something. For new users who don't know, VRED selecting is with shift and left mouse button. And then it already selects here my leather black. I can also have a preview of that, but I don't need that.

And as you can see, I have here another icon, then here on that guy. This icon, the green V icon, tells me I am an asset material, and I cannot be changed. Everything here on the right side is completely grayed out. If I want to change something, I have to go to the Modify tab, to the Modify button, and then it is available for modifying this stuff.

And then you can save it out again to your assets in case, and this will basically change the material of all other scenes that have the same asset, which can be a bit tricky. And it's a thing where you can destroy many things. But it can also be very handy, as you don't have to go into every scene where you have the same material and have to edit that.

OK. Let's create a material switch here that's pretty easy. Let's say I want to create a white leather. Then I just select it, press Control-D. Oops, I haven't selected that string. I have to go into the Material Editor, Control-D, and I have created here a leather black one. I will re-name that to white. And the material is already black, but I only have a bump texture I included to that.

So I can easily put that here, the diffuse color to white or let's say a light gray. And do a drag and drop onto the surface, and it will be assigned too. There are certain possibilities. This is the possibility in VRED to create a switch. I'm using here the left mouse button to basically assign another material to it. I can use also the middle mouse button. This will exchange every black material in the scene. Or I am using the right mouse button, and it's a bit difficult, as I'm using white here.

I can add a material, and as soon as I'm releasing the button, I have the choice to add as a switch or add a multi-pass. I'm using a switch material now. And as you can see here in the Material Editor, we have created now a switch material where the leather black and white is included. So I can easily switch back and forth and create my variants and render them out pretty easy so I don't have to reassign all that stuff again. And then I'm basically done.

So this is the material switch, and then I'm showing you how to work with the textures. Let's say I want to texture here a logo onto that guy. And therefore, normally I can also go to the diffuse texture if I want to add a logo, for example, but I have to search for that before. And therefore, I go into my Windows Explorer.

Say searching for some texture folders, and this is a pretty nice and easy way to assign textures. I guess this is the only software where you can assign textures by just doing a simple drag and drop from out of the Windows Explorer and release that. And as soon as you're releasing that, a menu is popping up telling you or asking you what to do now. I want to add this now as a deckle.

Click on the deckle, and I want to add this to the object only and not to the material. As soon as I'm applying that to the material, all the other objects which has the material applied to it will get the same texture as well. But I don't want to have that. Therefore, I want to add this only to that object. That means at the end, another material is being created-- a separate material is being created for that guy. And as you can see here, I automatically a texture projection note is here now in the scene.

Why can't I see the texture? It's because of the texture projection is potentially up. It is not-- very good. So driving that down. This is also a new feature here in VRED. We have here now, since the last versions, a projection depth.

So I can edit the projection depth that-- before that, we haven't had that possibility. It got projected all the way through. That means if you have multiple objects with the same material, it got projected to the first object, to the second, and so on. And I potentially don't want to have that.