Rotating the Direction of a Material

The information in this article applies to:

QUESTION

I have found a material that I like and want applied to my floors or elsewhere in my design, but I want it facing in a different direction from one object, or room, to another.  How can I accomplish this?

ANSWER

It's easy to make copies of materials in Home Designer to change elements such as their orientation, scale and even color.

To copy the material

1. Select View> Library Browser  to display it and locate the material that you want to copy.  
   
   
   
2. Right click on the material and choose Copy to User Catalog. 
   
   In 2021 and prior versions, you can click on Copy, then right-click on the User Catalog and choose Paste.
   
    
   
   
   

Now that you have made a copy of the material, you can change its  attributes.

To modify the material

1. Right click on the copied material and  select Open Object to display the Define Material dialog.
   
    
   
   
   
2. Change the Name of this material so that you know the difference from the original material.
   
   In this example the material is renamed as  My Birch 3-4-5" Plank - Natural 90 to indicate that it is rotated 90 degrees from the original material that it was copied from.
   
   
   
3. Under Rotate Angle, type in 90 and click OK to apply these changes to the material.
   
    
   
   In Home Designer Pro, select the Texture panel to rotate the Angle for the display of materials in Perspective  Camera views, since the Pattern panel will only affect Orthographic or views  using the Vector rendering technique. Placing a checkmark in the Keep Pattern/Texture in Sync option allows you to change the Angle on one panel and have the other Angle value changed automatically.
   
   

   To learn more about the other options available in the Define Material dialog such as Scale and Transparency, with it displayed on your screen, click on the Help button to launch the Home Designer's context sensitive help.

   
   

Now that the material has been modified, you are ready to apply it to a surface, such as the Floor in a room.

To apply the newly modified material to the Floor

1. Now, in plan view, use the Select Objects  tool to click inside of the room in which you want to change the flooring to the newly created material to select it. 
   
   

   If there is not an actual wall where you want to change the flooring, use a Room Divider, or wall specified as Invisible, to separate out the area in which you want the floor to be the rotated material.

   
   
2. Click on the Open Object  edit tool to display the Room Specification dialog and go to the Materials panel.
   
   
   
3. Select Floor Finish and click on the Select Material button.
   
   
   
   
   
4. This displays the Select Material dialog, where you can select the modified material, and OK to apply it.
   
   
   
5. Click OK once more in the Room Specification dialog to set the change to the flooring material and close it.
   
   

Now that you understand the basic process for modifying the orientation of materials, you can take this information and apply it to your own designs including other materials, such as tiles.