Inventor-Add Finish feature to Model State

Issue:

You want to add a face Finish feature appearance to a Model State table in order to apply it in a shaded drawing view.

But editing a model state instance and adding/editing a Finish appearance to a face isn't saving the finish to the model state table. 

Cause:

Finish appearance parameters are created but are not automatically added to the Model State table.

The three Finish parameters are added to Parameters:

But are not added to a column in the Model State table:

Solution:

Edit the Model State table and add a Finish_Appearance parameter column matching the parameter name. 

In the Model Browser , right-click on the Model State folder and 'Edit via Spreadsheet...' 

In this example the Finish was created with the default name 'Finish'. 

Add two colums to the Model State table in Excel:

  • Finish_Appearance (identical to the parameter name) = Appearance color
  • Finish = Compute or Suppress 

If the Finish_Appearance value is left empty, the appearance will be equal to the original part appearance.

Once the Finish_Appearance column is added to the Model State table, editing a Finish feature will prompt to save changes to it.  

For example:

Changing the Finish Appearance color from Yellow to Orange:

Opens a dialog box prompting to save the changes to the Model State table.

Either on file save or switching model states.  Selecting 'Yes' will save the finish appearance changes to the Model State table. 

In this example the Finish Appearance edit from Yellow to Orange saves to the Model State table:

To add a Finish features to iParts/iAssemblies: https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-4F447DB2-391C-41F7-86B9-60EC1EABECAC

To  store a part appearance you can also use View Reps: https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-66604249-F1CA-4CBB-AF39-515211174F82

About the Author

Joanna Gryszka

Manufacturing Technical Support Specialist<br><br>Joanna has over eight years of experience working with Autodesk products. She started supporting core AutoCAD and network installations of all Autodesk products. She now has five years of experience with Inventor. <br> She graduated from Mechanical Engineering and has been providing solutions to clients and dedicating her knowledge to the Solution Center since then.

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