KS7 flat appearance for materials in project library and other q's...

[yoshi]

KS7.1.51

My PC:
Windows 7 64 bit
i7 processor with 12 virtual cores
Nvidia quadro K5000 video card
167 GB SSD hard drive (41.1 GB free)
External 2T G-drive for my files
Solidworks files created by me
keyshot plugin, but I import directly


Is anyone having problems with the material appearance in the project library being flat? (attached is a pic of what i'm talking about) I clicked render all thumbnails and it did nothing. It also doesn't effect all the thumbnails in all my project files. Some files have fully rendered thumbnails, other have all flat ones, some files are mixed with both next to one another.  The problem extends to the material preview as well. The color in the below pic is suppose to be a candy blue, but previews as flat black.

I was also told that I should be able to click and drag the material in the preview window to a part to apply the material, but I am unable to do so.  Right now to find an existing material I have to dig through hundreds of materials in my project library to find the correct one in order to drag it to a linked group of parts. Copying and pasting a material in my big preview window only changes the part, not all the ones linked to it.  Surely there has to be a quicker way to locate a material in the project library?

I have uninstalled keyshot 7 a few times, downloaded other versions and have received multiple updates and the problem persist.

I sent these questions to support and was told to ask other users in the forum.  It appears support has never heard of this issue before so here I am. 

Also, is it suppose to take hours and hours to direct import bigger assembly files into KS7?  The plugin is faster, but still extremely slow.

[Rex]

Hi Yoshi,

The materials spheres are rendered with the currently active environment. I'm wondering if maybe you're environment is the simple gradient I see in the image and you are using physical lights to add highlights etc.?

The dnd material sphere will be functional in 7.2

[Will Gibbons]

Hi Yoshi,

The materials spheres are rendered with the currently active environment. I'm wondering if maybe you're environment is the simple gradient I see in the image and you are using physical lights to add highlights etc.?

The dnd material sphere will be functional in 7.2

To add to Rex' comment, use the in-scene material list. There you can right-click and show parts with materials applied as well as link to multiple parts at once. Also, the search bar in the materials library makes it pretty fast to find what you're looking for.