In the material manager window we have to decide between the buttons "Update", "Set" and "New". This is due to the system how MerlinEd archives its material definitions:
On start a scene has only one standard material definition. All objects would look like the same. So if you want that one object looks different you must create a new material definition. This you do when you press "New" after you have choosen how the new definition should look like.
The "Update" button should be used if you want to change the actual definition of a material.
The "Set" button is for the purpose that you want to give some objects the same colour. They will be set to the material definition of the last object selected.
So here we will use the "New" button.
Now we select the sphere and open the material manager once again. Go to the surface window. The diffuse colour should be still white otherwise you have selected the wrong object.
Transparency should be zero.
Refraction should be 1.2.
Reflection should be 30%.
Click on OK on the surface window and the material window. In the material manager you should click this time "Update".
Now we want to make a ring out of the caged balls. So select both objects, the sphere and the frame.
Click on the multicopy tool and select the circular option.
There you should set the parameters.
We want to have 16 ball in all so we need 15 copies.
A radius of 3 is needed so that the frames will touch each other (this was found out experimentially).
To get a regular figure we need an angle of 360°/16 = 22.5° .
And activate the option "Change angle" so that the sphere and frame is rotated accordingly on each copy.
A shift of the object is not needed so dx, dy and dz are zero.
Now click on Ok and see what happens.
What we have to do now is real work. We have to paint the balls so that they get a spectrum which starts and end with the same colour.
For this you open once again the list box and select the first sphere.
Open the material manager and go to the surface window. There you open the colour picker and set the mode to HSV. This will display the spectrum colours.
