Importing Material - Colour in Definition

[CBuserIndia]

I have been importing many custom materials - tiles, decorative laminates, Decorative veneers, wall covering etc. Never thought of checking "Colour" field inside material definition box. Recently when I was comparing material given by Chief & my custom (imported) material, I realised the colour field in my case was always white or blank.

 

See attached picture - 1.png is definition of material given by Chief & 2.png shows material definition of laminate imported by me.

 

This time, I changed material Colour by using Color picker tool & render quality/performance has drastically improved. Render quality has improved, time required to render has reduced.

 

I am going through KB & forums - and not able to find any instruction on what this "color" inside material definition stands for.

 

1) Can someone please explain what is this field about ?

2) What is best practice in giving value (color value) to material being imported ?

3) I am aware of using scale & size , pattern, fields. Are there any other material definition fields which has impact over render quality ?

 

The other eye opener was, most material which comes in catalog by chief, have very small files(image size are sometime 40-50kb in size). Until yesterday, I thought bigger the material file size, better will be render quality. However image files of material given inside chief ( for example various wood shades) are very small in size.

 

Thanks

[Chopsaw]

That setting provides your Vector material colour for anything that is displayed in Vector view, elevations etc.

 

Don't forget to press F1 from the DBX if in doubt.

[CBuserIndia]

That setting provides your Vector material colour for anything that is displayed in Vector view, elevations etc.

 

Don't forget to press F1 from the DBX if in doubt.

 

So does that mean it has no connection / impact on Rendering quality ?

[rlackore]

That color is also used if you select the "Blend with Texture" option:

 

[Chopsaw]

So does that mean it has no connection / impact on Rendering quality ?

 

Only used for vector rendering I believe so not sure what is going on when you say "  render quality/performance has drastically improved"  maybe you could show a before and after so we understand.

 

You can also in addition to what Robert said use the "Set Using Texture" tool under the Texture tab to automatically set the Material colour with an average generated from your texture file which usually works quit well.