When working in Explode-Render-Animate, you can modify the properties and colors of existing entities—materials, backgrounds, foregrounds, environments, and scenery—to produce new, customized entities for your use. You also can create entirely new entities “from scratch.”
After you create or modify an entity, you can store it in an archive directory (.lwa file), so that it is available for use in other projects.
This procedure explains how to create a new material based on an existing material. You also can use these steps to create other entities, such as backgrounds, environments, and scenes.
Activate the advanced rendering environment for your assembly document. To do this:
Choose Tools tab→Environs group→ERA.
From the Home tab→Render group, choose a render command: Scene or Render Area.
Choose an existing material as a template for the new material, and apply it to a part.
Click the Predefined Archives tab.
This page contains the library of advanced rendering entities that you can choose from.
On the Predefined Archives page, expand the Materials branch. Continue expanding the folders until you locate a material you want to copy.
Example:
For example, expand the Plastics folder, and then the Dull folder. Within the Dull folder you have a number of dull plastic colors. Choose the White (dull) plastic material.
Click and drag the material onto a model part, and release the mouse when the part highlights. This assigns the material to the part.
Tip:
You also can assign the color to multiple parts at once. First, use the Select command bar options to select the parts. Then, click the Predefined Archives tab and find the material you want to assign. Right-click the material and choose Assign To Selected.
Click the Session Entities tab.
This tab contains the entities currently used in the assembly.
Navigate to the Materials folder and locate the material and color you applied to the part in step 2.
Select the material entity to edit by doing either of the following:
Right-click the material, and then choose Edit Definition.
Double-click the material entity.
The Material Entity dialog box is displayed.
In the Material Entity dialog box, use the shaders on the Color, Reflectance, Transparency, Displacement, and Texture Space pages to customize the material color and properties. The Preview pane at right shows the result of each change you make.
Example:
To change the color of the material—On the Color page of the Material Editor dialog box, click inside the Color box. In the Color dialog box that is displayed, choose a new color for the material. Click OK to close the Color dialog box.
To see how the new material looks on the part, choose Home tab→Render group→Scene.
This redraws the window once. When it is done redrawing, the part returns to its previously applied color.
Tip:
You can create a new material “from scratch” by right-clicking a material entity in the Predefined Archives page, and then choosing New Entity→New Material. This creates a basic material definition, called “New Material.” To customize it, right-click New Material, and then choose New Entity→New Color, or choose one of the other entity definitions for materials.
To make customized materials and other entities available for reuse, you must create an archive on the Predefined Archives page in which to store them. This feature preserves the integrity of the system-supplied library of materials, environments, lights, and other visual effects used in advanced rendering.
Create an archive to store the new material by doing the following:
Click the Predefined Archives tab.
On the Predefined Archives page, click Create Archive: 
.
In the Create Archive dialog box, browse for the folder where you want to save your new archive, type a name, and then click Save.
The archive name is displayed in the Predefined Archives list.
Tip:
An archive file is saved with this file extension: .lwa.
You also can create a new archive folder by right-clicking the archive name and choosing New Entity→New Directory. You can rename it and organize your entities in folders if you want to.
Copy the new material to the new archive by doing the following:
Click the Session Entities tab.
Right-click the material you created, and then choose Copy from the shortcut menu.
On the Predefined Archives tab, right-click the archive name you created, and then choose Paste from the shortcut menu.
Right-click the material, choose Rename from the shortcut menu, and then type a unique name.
Tip:
If there are duplicate material names, the original material—not the one you created—is that one that will be used.
Save the new archive—Select the archive name on the Predefined Archives page, and then click Save Archive: 
.
To reuse a customized material or other visual-effects entity that you have created for advanced rendering, open the archive folder and choose the .lwa file that contains the visual effect you want to use.
Activate the advanced rendering environment for your assembly document. To do this:
Choose Tools tab→Environs group→ERA.
From the Home tab→Render group, choose a render command: Render Scene or Render Area.
Click the Predefined Archives tab.
On the Predefined Archives page, click Open Archive: 
.
Browse to the archive that contains the material and other entities you created.
In the graphic window, click the assembly part where you want to apply the custom material.
On the Predefined Archives page, right-click the material name, and then choose Apply To Selected from the shortcut menu.