Concept: Applying textures by class
Difficulty level: Intermediate
You can apply textures to objects directly, as described in Applying textures to objects and faces using the Texture tool and Managing object textures from the Object Info palette. However, it is often more efficient to apply textures using classes. Classes allow you to quickly and easily change the textures of all objects in a class by simply updating the class properties.
For components and objects that use material resources (Design Suite product required), the material’s texture is used by default, and overrides class attribute assignments. However, the texture of these components/objects can be changed either when creating or editing the component/object, or from the Render tab of the Object Info palette; see Controlling the appearance of objects that use materials.
When setting class properties, assign a texture to the entire object, or to individual components of objects such as walls, roofs, and hardscapes (Design Suite product required); see Setting class properties. You can apply the texture automatically as objects in the class are created, or set the texture by class from the Render tab of the Object Info palette later on.
Some objects can have different textures applied to their individual parts (such as extrudes, sweeps, and floors), but the Edit Class(es) dialog box does not allow you to specify textures for the parts. Apply textures to the individual parts of these objects from the Texture tool and Render tab of the Object Info palette and not by class.
To apply textures by class:
Select Tools > Organization to open the Organization dialog box.
Select the Details view option, and then select the Classes tab.
Select an existing class or create a new class (see Creating classes).
With the class selected, click Edit to open the Edit Class(es) dialog box.
On the Graphic Attributes pane, select any fill Style other than None (otherwise the texture will not render).
Click the Textures pane.
If desired, select Use at Creation to apply the texture to objects as they are created.
If there are multiple object types in this class that should have a texture, you can assign multiple textures. For each one, click the box above the Resource Selector, and then select the desired texture.