Hi Marc,
> I've noticed that if you subtract from an object of a
> different style, the object will have that different style
> in the new face(s) generated.
Yup, that's actually a feature that took quite a bit of work to achieve! :)
In that case, the faces that are created are not really completely new, they come from trimming faces of the operands.
Anytime that there is this kind of ancestor relationship where the face can be traced back to its source, the style of the ancestor face is maintained.
The reason why that is good is it allows for things like this - here I have a little knob that I want to array and cut out of a larger piece:
If I know in advance that I want the knob cutouts to have a different render material than the slab body, then I can at this point before the boolean assign the knob to have a particular style of "Knob" or whatever, and then after I do the array that style will replicate to the copies, and then after I do the boolean with the arrayed pieces the style will again be maintained on the fragments of the knobs.
So now there is not any further work to be done for assigning styles to all those little bits - because the styles propogated through the various operations including booleans, just setting up the one style initially let me avoid having to try to do it later to all the numerous little fragments.
Anyway, that's why it is set up with that method.
This is a bit of an unusual function for CAD modelers, many CAD systems are often more rigidly limited to only allow a single style for an entire solid and not have the ability to have different styles for individual faces of a solid. So it may be kind of different from what you are used to because of that.
I've thought about making some option that you could set to change how this worked and impose a "one style for final result" limit on the booleans though. I'll take a look at adding that in for the next beta.
- Michael
