You may occasionally need to use a type of material that is not included in the set of default material options in your part properties.

To create your custom Materials:

  1. Shut down any instances of Alibre Design, so that the program is closed.

  2. Go to C:\ProgramData\Alibre Design\System Files and then open the "alibre_unicode_sample.mtl" file in Notepad.

    Note: If you can't find the above file, Display Hidden Files and folders by going to Start>My Computer>Tools>Folder Options>View. Click the check on Show Hidden Files and Folders.

  3. The alibre_unicode_sample contains a sample of how to define a material. Follow this example to input your material parameters at the bottom of the page, following the format in the examples shown in the sample.

  4. Next, do a "save as" and make sure you select "all files" from the "save as type" field. Name the file "alibre_unicode_custom.mtl"

  5. Now, you can select the material from the properties dialogue.

Note that by default Windows does not display file name extensions - to see the .mtl(or other Alibre system file extensions) you may need to check 'File name extensions' on the View ribbon.