You can assign a different color to every material in Creo. You SHOULD be able to copy, say, aluminum 6061-T6 as 6061-T6_RED, change the color to red and then assign that as a material ("PTC_MASTER_MATERIAL" parameter column in the family table) to the instance....BUT, PTC STILL hasn't fixed that glitch. It's SUPPOSED to work that way, and actually DID once back in the early Wildfire days, but after that and even now (and I just tested it), it doesn't work. If you make the generic aluminum with it's stock silver color, if I make an instance that's brass (you have to open the instance to assign the material, it's difficult to do it in the table), then it changes the instance to that material and color, but when you go back to the generic it's the proper aluminum material but takes on the brass color! I know of no fix. You MIGHT be able to do it by creating a multibody part and make a copy of the body and assigning that body the color, but I'm not sure how that would work out. I guess you could make a surface copy of the original part, then do a solidify cut to remove the original body so that only your new body with it's desired color is there. Suppress the solidify cut as needed. Rinse and repeat.
The material swap would be the PERFECT and easy way to do this, but, as I mentioned, it's been broken for, geez, 15 years now, like not being able to see cosmetic threads in the model unless you switch to wirefram...aaaannnd they're in no hurry to actually fix it. But hey, we get a new and ever MORE confusing ribbon every year, RIIiiigght?
Best of luck...
