Dark Appearance Palette

[doneill]

I believe this has come up before, but the previous solution is not available in my Creo 6.

Colors in the model seem fine but selecting a color from the palette is a challenge... They are all dark. 

[StephenW]

Just finished responding to the other post...LOL

Seems like that option was maybe replaced with texture_search_path

I'm not sure that's a true statement but you may want to look and see if you have that set and temporarily remove  it and restart Creo to see if it improves.

The way I solved this initially was to remove all my config.pro files and start Creo. When the problem was gone, that told me it was definitely a config setting.

Then I cut away 1/2 the config and I figured out which 1/2 had the problem setting. Then I cut that partial config in 1/2 again and again until I could tell which setting it was. It probably took less than an hour to do this.

[doneill]

Thanks for the reply!  

I've run it without my config.pro... no change...

One of my coworkers does not have the issue... but another one has the same issue.  

My graphics driver is up to date... 

This one's a challenge.  

I appreciate your work on this.

[StephenW]

Add the config.pro option

GRAPHICS WIN32_GDI

If the colors are better, it tells you there is a graphics card issue. Maybe loading an older driver. 

Just don't leave that option as active, it will slow everything down!

[doneill]

Thanks again...

I added    GRAPHICS WIN32_GDI

but id did not improve the Appearances Palette...

I guess this helps narrow things down though...

[StephenW]

Just making sure, You have to restart creo for this option to be active.

[doneill]

Yes I did that... In fact I went back to the Configuration Editor after I restarted Creo just to make sure it was in there and "Applied"

[StephenW]

Oh, and make sure there aren't other config.pro files loading.

For example, there are 3 loading on my system.

[doneill]

There is another config.pro file that precedes mine, but I don't see a way to stop that.

[StephenW]

If you can rename that config.pro to something else, temporarily. I know sometime IT depts lock access to certain areas, so that may not be possible. You may want to ask them to temporarily remove that lock or for someone in your IT group to temporarily remove the config for you.

If you can't, you may want to review the settings in there.

If you can share what is in there, maybe I can find something, just remember to review it before sharing it in the community and remove anything that you or your company doesn't want put out on the internet.  Most of the config is just mundane settings that no one cares about but there may be a few items you don't need to share with the world.

[doneill]

I'll give that a try.  I've got a meeting coming up so... I'll have to look at this again tomorrow.

Thank you so much for the help!

[KenFarley]

I had the same problem back a while ago and never resolved it.

texture_search_path is blank for my session.

The trouble I see is a hybrid, likely a result of something being odd about my settings. Attached is a screenshot of the Appearances menu I'm given. Note that most of the entries look okay, except for last six entries. They are all supposed to be shaded, different colors, colored highlights, etc. The only way I know which is which when I'm applying them to a model is because I've named them descriptively.

The behavior most definitely suggests that it's something I'm doing that is botching up things. All the entries that are weird are defined in my personal "appearances.dmt" file. Here's a sample of one entry.

# material name
material_name "ref_color71"
# material label
material_label "hilite-green"
# material description
material_description "Highlighted, Green"
# material keywords
material_keywords ""
# ambient color
ambient_color 0.588235 0.588235 0.588235 1.000000
# diffuse color
diffuse_color 0.588235 0.588235 0.588235 1.000000
# specular color
specular_color 0.390000 0.840000 0.190000 1.000000
# diffuse
diffuse 0.540000
# ambient
ambient 0.550000
# shine
shine 0.100000
# shine intensity
intensity 0.740000
# reflection
reflection 0.200000
# bump_type
bump_type 0
# amplitude
amplitude 1.000000
# scale
scale 0.100000
# exponent
exponent 3.000000
# rotation
rotation 0.000000
# color_tex_type
color_tex_type 0
# color_tex_scale
color_tex_scale 0.100000
# color_tex_rotation
color_tex_rotation 0.000000
# decal_type
decal_type 0
# transparency
transparency 0.000000
# fresnel index of refraction
index_of_refraction 1.000000
# fresnel reflections
fresnel_reflections 0

If anyone has any insights into what might be wrong with this definition that makes it not appear correctly in the "samples", I'd appreciate it. Oddly enough, other entries I have that are defined in the same way appear as expected. I suspect it's something to do with one or more of the parameters, like "shine" or "intensity". The thing is, the appearances look good on the models, it's just in the pallette that they look horrible.

I've just accepted the situation for a while now, but it would be nice to fix this nonsense.

Appearances