Chart Setup: Materials and Shading

Main controls for chart materials, shaders, and object shade smoothing.

Chart Materials.

Components

Menu: Materials

Contains material controls for chart components.

Toggle: Edit Chart Materials

Note

When materials load from presets. They don’t directly load into the active scene. Instead they load into Blender data. To access chart materials they must be attached to an object first.

• Enabled: Creates a material slot on the Ch_Area object and assigns the first available material. In the Shader Editor materials can now be accessed by setting the Ch_Area as the active object.

• Disabled: Removes the created material slot from the Ch_Area object.

Toggle: Bypass (Area|Datapoint) Mat

If custom objects with pre assigned materials are used as an Area or Datapoint object and it is desired to use the original materials, then ChArtist materials may be bypassed with this control.

Material: (Multi)

Assign any scene materials to individual chart components.

Menu: Shaders

Contains shader controls for ChArtist built in materials.

Chart Materials Shaders.

Important

The Shaders section only applies for the 4 built in materials.

The below materials must be loaded in the scene and assigned to a visible chart component for its controls to work.

• ch_area_def

• ch_range_def

• ch_line_def

• ch_label_def

If using custom materials these settings have no effect.

Menu: Shade Smooth

Contains shader controls for ChArtist built in materials.

Toggle: (Multi Components)

Set face shading for all chart components.

• Enabled: Applies face smoothing to selected component.

• Disabled: Set flat shading for selected components faces.

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Usage Examples

Modify a Material for a chart component

In this example, the a chart component material will be modified.

Note

ChArtist can only access materials already in Blenders data. If it is desired to use a custom material, create it first. It can be created directly on the Ch_Area object.

1. Apply the preset:

   Full/00_Default/00_Default/00_Default
   

2. Navigate to Chart Setup/Materials and Shading/Materials.

3. Change Material: (Datapoint) from ch_range_def to ch_area_def.

4. Change Material: (Datapoint Label) from ch_label_def to ch_range_def.

Modify a Shader for a chart component

In this example, the shader for the default material ch_range_def will be modified. It will be updated from using the default 3 swatches for a the ch_range_def material to using 2 swatches with a custom color gradient.

Note

ChArtist can only access shader parameters for the default set of materials. Any custom materials, and shader parameters need to be adjusted in the Blender Shader Editor.

1. Apply the preset:

   Full/00_Default/00_Default/00_Default
   

2. Navigate to Chart Setup/Materials and Shading/Shaders/Range.

3. Change List: Color Type to 2 Swatches.

4. Select a custom color with Color: Swatch 1.

5. Select a custom color with Color: Swatch 2.