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Autodesk 3ds Max 3ds Max - 2009 User Manual

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3ds Max
Help: Volume 3
2009
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2008 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by Autodesk, Inc., this publication, or parts thereof, may not be
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Portions Copyright © 1999, 2000 NVIDIA Corporation. This file is provided without support, instructions or implied warranty of any kind. NVIDIA makes no guarantee of its fitness for a particular purpose and is not liable under any circumstances for any damages or loss whatsoever arising from the use or inability to use this file or items derived from it. Portions Copyright © 2006 NVIDIA Corporation. Portions Copyright 1990-1991 by Thomas Knoll. Copyright 1992-1995 by Adobe Systems, Inc. Portions Copyright 1993-1996, Adobe Systems, Incorporated. All rights reserved worldwide. This software contains source code provided by mental images GmbH. Portions Copyright Guruware OBJio © 2007 http://www.guruware.at Portions Copyright Orbaz Technologies © 2007 Portions Copyright Mathew Kaustinen © 2007
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THIS PUBLICATION AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS MADE AVAILABLE BY AUTODESK, INC. "AS IS." AUTODESK, INC. DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE REGARDING THESE MATERIALS.
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Material Editor, Materials, and Maps
Materials describe how an object reflects or transmits light. Within a material, maps can simulate textures, applied designs, reflections, refractions, and other effects. (Maps can also serve as environments and projections from lights.) The Material Editor is the dialog you use to create, alter, and apply the materials in your scene.
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Image by Michael McCarthy
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See also:
■ Designing Materials on page 5260
■ Types of Materials on page 5379
■ Material Editor on page 5284
■ Types of Maps on page 5767
Designing Materials
Materials make objects look more convincing.
These topics give you an overview of using the Material Editor to design
materials on page 8041. The Material Editor on page 5284 gives you a wide variety
of options for designing material, as well as myriad controls. If you’re new to the Material Editor, read this topic for a general idea about working with materials, and what the most important options are.
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For more details, follow the links in the workflow outline.
Workflow Outline
In general, when you create a new material and apply it to an object, you follow these steps:
1 Make a sample slot on page 5262 active, and enter a name for the material
you are about to design.
2 Choose the material type on page 5264.
TIP 3ds Max provides two renderers: the default scanline renderer on page
6141 and the mental ray renderer on page 6230, each with distinctive capabilities. You choose a renderer for each scene based on its features. It is a good idea to design materials with a particular renderer in mind. The mental ray
Connection rollout on page 5385 lets you add features unique to the mental
ray renderer to basic 3ds Max materials.
When rendering with mental ray, it’s highly recommended that you use the Arch & Design material on page 5544 whenever possible. This material is optimized for use with mental ray and offers a number of distinct advantages over other materials available with 3ds Max.
3 For a Standard or Raytrace material, choose the shading type on page 5265.
4 Enter settings for the various material components on page 5267: diffuse
color, glossiness, opacity, and so on.
NOTE Lights and Shading on page 5268 describes how lights affect the
appearance of a material. Choosing Colors for Realism on page 5270 gives guidelines on getting good results from unmapped materials.
5 Assign maps on page 5274 to the components you want to map, and adjust
their parameters.
6 Apply on page 5278 the material to the object.
7 If necessary, adjust the UV mapping coordinates on page 5279 in order to
orient maps with objects correctly.
8 Save on page 5280 the material.
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Sample Slots and Material Name
The sample slots on page 5304 display previews of materials. They are the most prominent feature of the Material Editor interface. Below and to the right of the sample slots are various tool buttons on page 5317 for the Material Editor. Below the tool buttons is a name field that shows the name of the material.
TIP Always give a material a unique, intelligible name as soon as you begin to work on it.
By default, six sample slots are visible at once. The Material Editor actually holds 24 materials at one time. You can use the scroll bars to move among the sample slots, or you can change the number of sample slots visible at once to 15 or 24 slots. Seeing more slots at once can be helpful if you are working with a complex scene.
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IMPORTANT While the Material Editor can edit no more than 24 materials at a time, a scene can contain an unlimited number of materials. When you are through editing one material, and have applied it to objects in the scene, you can use that sample slot to get on page 5341 a different material from the scene (or create a new one) and then edit it.
To increase the number of sample slots visible at once, right-click a slot and then choose 5 X 3 Sample Windows or 6 X 4 Sample Windows from the pop-up menu.
NOTE The right-click menu also has an Options choice on page 5335. This displays a dialog with various options for sample display. Exploring these options can help you learn to preview materials effectively. However, keep in mind that these settings affect the sample display only. They change nothing in the 3ds Max scene.
When more sample slots are visible, the images are smaller, but you can display a larger, floating, and resizable material sample by double-clicking the slot you want to see better.
Click a sample slot to make it active. Now you can design a new material from scratch, or you can load a previously stored material by clicking Get Material on page 5341, which displays the Material/Map Browser. The Browser is a dialog that lets you choose materials and maps from a material library, from the scene, and so on.
You can also copy a material from one sample slot to another. Drag the slot with the material to another slot. To avoid confusion, rename the copy in the new sample slot before you begin to make changes to it.
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Material Type
Every material has a type. The default is Standard on page 5395, which is the material type you will probably use most often. In general, other material types are for special purposes. The other material types are:
■ Advanced Lighting Override on page 5734
Used to fine-tune the effects of a material on Advanced Lighting on page 6153, including light tracing on page 6154 and radiosity solutions on page 6168. Radiosity Override is not required for calculating advanced lighting, but it can enhance the result.
■ Blend on page 5708
Mixes two other materials together. Can use a mask or a simple amount control.
■ Composite on page 5711
Mixes up to 10 materials.
■ Double-Sided on page 5713
Contains two materials, one for the front and one for the back faces of an object.
■ Ink 'n Paint on page 5742
Creates cartoon effects with flat shading and “inked” borders.
■ Lightscape on page 5741
Supports import on page 7253 and export on page 7251 of data from the Lightscape product.
■ Matte/Shadow on page 5699
Displays the environment but receives shadows. This is a special-purpose material. The effect is similar to using a matte in filmmaking.
■ Morpher on page 5716
Lets you morph between materials using the Morpher modifier on page
1545.
■ Multi/Sub-Object on page 5720
Lets you apply multiple sub-materials to a single object's sub-objects.
■ Raytrace on page 5490
Supports the same kind of diffuse mapping as Standard material, but also provides fully raytraced reflections and refractions, along with other effects such as fluorescence.
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■ Shell on page 5732
Contains a material that has been rendered to a texture on page 6371, as well as the original material upon which the texture is based.
■ Shellac on page 5727
Mixes two materials by applying a "shellac" material to another.
■ Standard on page 5395
Uses surface shaders to simulate materials. In general, the standard material is probably the best choice for a simple material if you choose to use standard light objects. If you use photometric lights, use the default Architectural material.
■ Top/Bottom on page 5729
Contains two materials, one for faces that point upward, the other for faces that point downward.
Standard materials let you set values for components such as color, glossiness, and opacity. They also let you apply maps to the components, which can produce an enormous variety of effects. Some other material types have these features as well. Some materials, such as Multi/Sub-Object or Double Sided, have controls only for combining other materials.
mental ray Materials
A group of materials is provided for use with the mental ray renderer on page
6230. See mental ray Materials on page 5543.
Shading Type
The Standard and Raytrace materials let you specify a shading type. Shading types are handled by a "shader," which describes how the surface responds to light.
WARNING When you change the shading type of a material, you lose the settings (including map assignments) for any parameters that the new shader does not support. If you want to experiment with different shaders for a material with the same general parameters, copy the material to a different sample slot on page 5304 before you change its shading type. That way, you can still use the original material if the new shader doesn't give you the effect you want.
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Samples of different shading for a standard material
1. Anisotropic
2. Blinn
3. Metal
4. Multi-layer
5. Oren-Nayar-Blinn
6. Phong
7. Strauss
8. Translucent
Several different shaders are available. Some of these are not available for the Raytrace material, as indicated below. Blinn is the most general-purpose of
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these shaders. The others have special purposes, especially regarding how the material creates highlights.
■ Anisotropic on page 5424
Creates surfaces with noncircular, "anisotropic" highlights; good for modeling hair, glass, or metal.
■ Blinn on page 5426
Creates smooth surfaces with some shininess; a general-purpose shader.
■ Metal on page 5427
Creates a lustrous metallic effect.
■ Multi-Layer on page 5428
Creates more complex highlights than Anisotropic by layering two anisotropic highlights.
Not available for Raytrace material.
■ Oren-Nayar-Blinn on page 5429
Creates good matte surfaces such as fabric or terra-cotta; similar to Blinn.
■ Phong on page 5426
Creates smooth surfaces with some shininess; similar to Blinn, but doesn't handle highlights (especially glancing highlights) as well.
■ Strauss on page 5431
Creates both nonmetallic and metallic surfaces; has a simple set of controls.
Not available for Raytrace material.
■ Translucent on page 5434
Translucent shading is similar to Blinn shading, but it also lets you specify translucency, where light is scattered as it passes through the material. You can use translucency to simulate frosted and etched glass.
Not available for the Raytrace material.
Material Components
A material's components describe its visual and optical properties. The components in the Architectural material on page 5526 are based on physical qualities; for example, diffuse color, shininess, transparency, and so on. The components in a Standard material on page 5395 include color components, highlight controls, self-illumination, and opacity. Like the Standard material, the Raytrace material on page 5490 uses a nonphysical model to describe surfaces.
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Standard and Raytrace material components vary depending on which shader on page 5265 you use.
You can assign maps to most components, including color components such as Diffuse, and value components such as Transparency or Opacity. Maps can increase the complexity and realism of the material's appearance.
Lights and Shading
Materials work in combination with lights on page 4970. The intensity of light that falls on a surface determines the intensity of color to display. Three factors contribute to the intensity of light where it falls on an object:
■ Light intensity: A light's original intensity at its point of origin.
■ Angle of incidence: The more a surface inclines away from the light source,
the less light it receives and the darker it appears. The angle between a ray of light and the face normal on page 8059 of a surface is the angle of incidence for that face. When the angle of incidence is 0 degrees (that is, the light strikes the face perpendicularly), the face is illuminated at full intensity unless the light is attenuated. Full intensity is the light's Multiplier value times the value of the face's surface color. The Multiplier value is 1.0 by default; the surface value is the Value component of the surface color's HSV description on page 8105. As the angle of incidence increases, the intensity of the face illumination decreases.
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Angle of incidence affects intensity.
■ Distance: Light diminishes over distance. This effect is known as
attenuation on page 7915. By default, attenuation is turned off, but you can
turn it on and specify the distance over which it operates.
Lights and the Component Colors of a Standard Material
As the names of a standard material's color components on page 5267 imply, the kind of light that strikes a surface with a material determines how the surface appears when it is shaded.
■ Ambient color appears where the surface is lit by ambient light alone
(where the surface is in shadow).
■ Diffuse color appears where light falls directly on the surface. It is called
"diffuse" because light striking it is reflected in various directions. Highlights, on the other hand, are reflections of light sources.
■ Specular highlights appear where the viewing angle is equal to the angle
of incidence. Glancing highlights appear where the angle of incidence is high, relative to the observer or camera (that is, the light ray is nearly parallel to the surface). Shiny surfaces usually have specular highlights. Glancing highlights are characteristic of metallic surfaces. Some surfaces are completely reflective, or nearly so. These reflect their environment as well as the light sources that illuminate them. To model
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such surfaces, you need to use reflection mapping on page 5964 or ray tracing (see Raytrace Material on page 5490).
The three color components blend at the edges of their regions. Between ambient and diffuse, the blending is calculated by the shader. Between diffuse and specular, you set the amount of blending by using the standard material's highlight controls.
Choosing Colors for Realism
Materials add greater realism to a scene only if you choose their colors and other properties to appear like real-world objects. This topic presents some general guidelines for choosing standard material colors. When possible, you should also observe colors in the objects you are modeling, especially under different lighting conditions.
For objects on which you want the viewer to focus attention, an unmapped standard material doesn't often provide the level of realistic detail you probably want. However, for distant and peripherally visible objects, as well as some kinds of real-world materials, such as molded plastic, an unmapped standard material can work well. Keeping the number of maps to a minimum can help keep down the file size.
Indoor and Outdoor Lighting
Whether a scene is indoors or outdoors affects your choice of material colors, just as it affects the way you set up lights on page 4970. Full sunlight is bright and unidirectional. Most indoor lighting is less intense and more even (that is, multidirectional) than daylight. However, some special indoor lighting (and nighttime outdoor lighting), as for the stage, also features intense, directional light.
Direct sunlight has a yellow tint. Materials for objects to appear in daylight should have a specular color of a pale, unsaturated yellow (for example, RGB values of 240, 240, 188). The ambient color should be the complement of the specular: a deep, dark purple with a hint of the diffuse color.
Materials for objects to appear under normal interior lighting should have a specular color that is close to white. (Our perception compensates for the yellow or green tint that is often present in artificial light.) The ambient color can often have the same hue as the diffuse color, but with a darker value.
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Materials for objects to appear under spotlights should follow the general guidelines for daylight materials. The specular color should match the spotlight's color, and the ambient color should be a very dark value of the spotlight color's complementary hue, mixed with a bit of the material's diffuse color.
If you want to render an object under changing lighting conditions, you can choose colors that are a compromise between the optimal colors for each kind of lighting, or you can animate on page 5361 the material so that its colors change to suit the changing light.
Representing Natural Materials
Outdoor scene with natural materials
Most natural materials have a matte surface with little or no specular color. For natural materials such as these, use the following guidelines:
■ Ambient color: The ambient color depends on whether the scene is indoors
or outdoors, as previously described.
■ Diffuse color: Choose a color found in nature. It is best to use the observed
color of the object itself, or a similar object.
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■ Specular color: Make the specular color the same hue as the diffuse, but
with a higher value and a lower saturation.
■ Glossiness: Set the Glossiness to a low value.
Some foliage, bird feathers, fish scales, and so on, are shiny. For materials such as these, set the Glossiness to higher values. You might also want to change the specular color so it's closer to the lighting color than the surface's diffuse color.
Water is reflective, and is best modeled by a color component in combination with a reflection map on page 5964 or a water map on page 5907.
While metal is a natural material, its special visual characteristics are most apparent when it has been polished. Standard material represents this by using a special shading type, described later in this topic.
Representing Manufactured Materials
Indoor scene with manufactured materials
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Manufactured materials often have a synthetic color rather than an "earth tone." Also, many manufactured materials, such as plastics and porcelain glazes, are very shiny. For manufactured materials, use the following guidelines:
■ Ambient color: The ambient color depends on whether the scene is indoors
or outdoors, as previously described.
■ Diffuse color: Although the diffuse color doesn't have to be an "earth tone,"
as with natural materials you should used the observed color of the object or a similar object.
■ Specular color: Make the specular color close to white, or to the color of
the light source. White is especially characteristic of plastic materials.
■ Glossiness: Set the glossiness to a high value.
Representing Metallic Objects
Metallic cup and ice cream scoop
Polished metal has a characteristic "glancing" highlight that appears where the light is at a high angle of incidence. To generate this effect, Metal shading uses the Cook/Torrance illumination model.
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For metallic materials, you can use the Metal shading type. This disables the specular color and highlight controls. The Metal shader calculates its own specular color, which can vary between the diffuse color and the color of the light.
In the diffuse region of a metal material, the ambient component is greater than it is for other kinds of materials.
The Anisotropic, Multi-Layer, and Strauss shaders give you further options for modeling polished metal.
If the metallic object is the focus of the scene, you can improve realism by using a Blend material on page 5708 to combine metallic shading with a
reflection map on page 5964.
TIP When you preview metallic surfaces, it is useful to turn on a backlight. This displays the metal's glancing highlight. The Backlight button is to the right of the sample slots.
Using Maps to Enhance a Material
Maps provide images, patterns, color adjustments, and other effects you can apply to the visual/optical components of a material. Without maps, material design in 3ds Max is limited. Maps give the Material Editor its full flexibility, and can give you dramatic results.
Spheres with various maps applied to them (as well as a reflection map applied to the surface beneath them)
The simplest use of a map is to assign a pattern to a material's Diffuse color.
Diffuse mapping on page 5460 is also known as "texture mapping." It applies an
image or pattern to geometry the material is applied to.
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Example of designing a mapped material:
1. Choose a sample slot.
2. Increase the highlight.
3. Apply a checker map to the material's diffuse component.
4. Apply a bump map to give the material ridges.
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5. The checker map displays in viewports, but the bump map does not, by default.
6. Rendering the material shows the full effect of mapping.
WARNING When you change the shading type on page 5265 of a standard material,
you lose the settings (including map assignments) for any parameters that the new shader does not support. If you want to experiment with different shaders for a material with the same general parameters, copy the material to a different
sample slot on page 5304 before you change its shading type. That way, you can
still use the original material if the new shader doesn't give you the effect you want.
Map Terminology
The term "material map" is sometimes used to describe a map assigned in the material editor. A material map applies a color or pattern to a surface. This is different from maps used for displacement mapping with the Displace modifier on page 1344, environment mapping for backgrounds, or projection mapping from lights.
The term "texture map" is sometimes used as well. It is interchangeable with "diffuse map"; that is, with a map that applies colors to geometry, as opposed to a map that create reflections, bumps, and so on.
In the Material/Map Browser on page 5290, maps are categorized according to how the map software functions. The categories are:
■ 2D maps
A bitmap on page 5795 is the prototypical 2D map. 2D maps apply pictures and patterns to the surface of objects.
■ 3D maps
3D maps are generated procedurally. 3D maps apply patterns throughout an object's geometry.
■ Compositors
Compositors combine other maps.
■ Color Modifiers
Color modifiers are usually composited with another map to adjust its color. The Vertex Color map is a special case that displays the colors you assign to vertices in a mesh.
■ Other
"Other" maps include maps that simulate reflection or refraction.
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The names of individual map types describe the pattern or effect they create, such as Checker map, Bitmap, Gradient, Flat Reflection, and so on.
NOTE In some cases the user interface also uses "map" to describe not the map type, but the visual component being mapped. For example, a "diffuse map" means a map of any type applied to a material's diffuse component. This is an ambiguity in the use of "map" that can be a bit confusing when you first encounter it.
Assigning Maps
For a standard material on page 5395, you assign maps using the Maps rollout. Click the Map button in line with the name of the visual component you want to map. The Material/Map Browser on page 5290 is displayed. Select the map type (for example, Bitmap) from the list of maps, and then click OK. Double-clicking the map's name in the Browser also assigns the map type.
The Browse From group box in the Browser creates new maps by default. You can also use it to obtain maps from a library (see Saving A Material), from the current scene, from objects selected in the scene, or from elsewhere in the material editor.
In the Browser, you can turn on icons of differing sizes to preview maps before you assign them.
A Standard material's Basic Parameters rollout has shortcut buttons for assigning a map to some of the material's visual components. These small buttons are equivalent to the buttons in the Maps rollout. Assigning a map to a button in one rollout changes the corresponding button in the other.
Each type of map has its own set of parameters and controls. If the map is a Checker map, for example, you can choose the colors of the checkers, and whether a checker color has a map of its own. You can change tiling values to affect the scale of the checkers, adjust noise parameters to make the checkers irregular, and so on.
NOTE To save loading time, if a map with the same name is in two different locations (in two different paths), it is loaded only once. This poses a problem only if your scene includes two maps that have different content but the same name. In this case, only the first map encountered will appear in the scene.
Navigating the Material/Map Tree
When you build a material of any complexity, you are building a material/map tree. The root of the tree is the material itself. The branches are the maps you
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have assigned to the material's components. Some maps can themselves contain maps, as in a map applied to one color of a Checker material on page 5808, so the tree can be more than two levels deep, and can actually be as deep as you need it to be.
The Material/Map Navigator on page 5357 is a dialog that displays the tree for the current material. It is useful for finding a map and displaying its parameters. Click the map to display its rollouts in the Material Editor. To copy a map to a different component of the same material, you can also drag the map's name from the Navigator to a map button in the Material Editor.
The Go Forward To Sibling and Go To Parent buttons also navigate the map tree. Go Forward To Sibling moves laterally in the map tree, while Go To Parent moves up the tree. (To move down the tree, click a map button that has a map assigned to it.) Another way to move between parents and children in the tree is to drop down the material name field on page 5360 and click the name of a map or material.
Applying a Material to an Object
There are two ways to apply a material to an object:
■ If the sample slot is active and the object is already selected, click Assign
Material To Selection on page 5344.
■ Drag from the sample slot to the object.
As you drag, a tooltip appears over each object beneath the mouse, showing the object's name. You can apply the material whether the object is selected or not. Release the mouse to apply the material.
Applying a material overrides any previous material assignment the object might have had. Once the material is applied, while the sample slot is active, the material is "hot" and changes you make to it affect the object automatically. See Sample Slots on page 5304 for more about hot and cold materials.
The Undo command on page 262 works for material assignment.
You can apply only one material to an object. To overcome this restriction, use a Multi/Sub-Object material on page 5720. This is a container for various sub-materials that correspond to specified sub-objects such as different faces in a mesh, NURBS surfaces in a NURBS model, and so on.
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You can apply the same material to multiple objects in the scene.
See also:
■ Dragging and Dropping Maps and Materials on page 5310
■ Drag and Drop Sub-Object Material Assignment on page 5312
Mapping Coordinates
An object assigned a 2D mapped material (or a material that contains 2D maps) must have mapping coordinates. These coordinates specify how the map is projected onto the material, and whether it is projected as a "decal," or is tiled or mirrored. Mapping coordinates are also known as UV or UVW
coordinates on page 8161. These letters refer to coordinates in the object's own
space, as opposed to the XYZ coordinates that describe the scene as a whole.
Most renderable objects have a Generate Mapping Coordinates parameter. This is on by default, but if it’s off and the object contains a mapped material, when you try to render, you get a warning.
Some objects, such as editable meshes, don't have automatic mapping coordinates. For these types of objects, you can assign coordinates by applying a UVW Map Modifier on page 1931.
If the material appears the way you want it with the default mapping, you don't need to adjust the mapping. If you need to adjust it, use the map's Coordinates rollout. There are two typical sets of coordinates parameters: one for 2D maps such as Bitmaps on page 5795, and another for 3D maps such as
Noise on page 5886. See Coordinates Rollout (2D) on page 5782 and Coordinates Rollout (3D) on page 5861.
NOTE The UVW Remove utility on page 5284 provides a way to remove mapping coordinates or an entire material from selected objects.
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Mapping coordinates shown as U and V axes local to a surface.
Saving a Material
While a material is in the Material Editor or applied to an object, it is part of the scene, and is saved with the scene. However, for complicated scenes it is inconvenient to have all materials active in the Material Editor. You can also save a material by putting it into a material library. Some libraries are provided in the \materiallibraries subdirectory. The file 3dsmax.mat is the default library. You can add your material to this library, or create your own libraries.
Procedures
To save a material in a library:
This stores a material in the current material library. To use a different library, first open it using the Material/Map Browser on page 5290.
1 In the Material Editor, click the sample sphere for the material to save.
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2 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Put to Library on page 5348.
This opens the Put to Library dialog on page 5372. Change the material
name or leave it as is, and then click OK.
3 Choose Rendering > Material/Map Browser, or, on the Material
Editor toolbar, click Get Material on page 5341.
The Material/Map Browser on page 5290 opens.
4 In the Browser > Browse From group, choose Mtl Library, if necessary.
The stored material appears in the list.
5 In the Browser > File group, click Save to save the library with the current
name (if any) or Save As to save it as a different file.
TIP You can use the Merge function in the File group to add materials from
the current library to another library.
Material XML Exporter Utility
Utilities panel > Utilities rollout > More button > Utilities dialog > Material XML Export
You can export materials you create in 3ds Max to XML files, which can then be shared with other 3ds Max users or used in AutoCAD Architecture (formerly Autodesk Architectural Desktop) to modify material definitions.
NOTE You can add an exported XML material to your 3ds Max scene by dragging and dropping from a Web site or Windows Explorer onto an object in your scene, or by importing it directly onto objects.
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Interface
Selection Method group
The Selection Method group lets you set the method for selecting the materials you wish to export.
Material/Map Browser Lets you select a material to export from the
Material/Map browser on page 5290.
Object List Lets you specify objects using the Select Object For Material Modifier Export dialog, which works like the Select From Scene dialog on page
228. All materials assigned to the selected objects are exported.
Pick Object in Scene Lets you select an object from your scene. Any materials assigned to the selected object are exported.
All Objects in Scene Exports all of the assigned materials in your scene.
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Output Format group
The Output Format group defines the format of the XML Material output.
Native XML (vizML) Materials are exported as raw XML.
TIP Use this format for sharing XML material files within 3ds Max.
Tool Catalog Materials are exported to the ATC (Autodesk Tool Catalog) format.
This file type is suitable for display in the AutoCAD Content Browser and the Autodesk VIZ Content Browser.
NOTE This file type cannot be imported to 3ds Max unless you also have Autodesk VIZ Render installed on the same system.
Specify XSLT This option lets you apply your own XSL transform to the XML output.
Export group
The Export group lets you define the parts of the material assignments to export.
Material Exports the material definitions.
Create Thumbnails Exports thumbnails for each material.
NOTE Thumbnail images are referenced by the ATC and displayed in the AutoCAD Content Browser and Autodesk VIZ Content Browser.
Mapping Modifiers Exports the mapping modifiers applied to specific objects.
Export This button begins the XML export process, using the defined selection
method, output format, and export parameters.
Upon clicking Export, you are prompted to set the path or URL to store in the XML file as the path to any referenced bitmap files. The default is an empty string, which means no path will be prepended to the bitmap filenames when written to XML. When the material is later imported, it will be assumed that the referenced bitmap file can be found in the bitmap search path.
If you have elected to export thumbnails or to apply your own XSL transform, you are then prompted to set a path to store the thumbnail files and to locate your XSLT file, respectively.
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UVW Remove Utility
Utilities panel > Utilities rollout > More button > Utilities dialog > UVW Remove
The UVW Remove utility removes mapping coordinates or materials from the currently selected objects.
Interface
UVW Click to remove UVW mapping from this object.
NOTE The utility can remove UVW mapping only from collapsed editable mesh objects; that is, editable meshes with no modifiers.
Materials Click to remove material assignment from the selected objects.
Set Gray If this is on when you click the Materials button, the object color is
set to a neutral gray. Default=off.
Material Editor
Main toolbar > Material Editor
Rendering menu > Material Editor
Keyboard > M
The Material Editor provides functions to create and edit materials on page 8041 and maps on page 8036.
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Materials create greater realism in a scene. A material describes how an object reflects or transmits light. Material properties work hand-in-hand with light properties; shading or rendering combine the two, simulating how the object would look in a real-world setting.
You apply materials to individual objects or selection sets; a single scene can contain many different materials.
NOTE Creating a new material clears the Undo/Redo lists.
Procedures
To view the Material Editor:
■ Click the Material Editor button on the main toolbar, or press M.
The Material Editor dialog has sample slots on page 5304 for viewing previews of materials. When you first view the Material Editor, the material previews have a uniform default color.
To give a material a different name:
■ Edit the name field that appears below the Material Editor toolbar.
The name of the active material appears in the title bar of the Material Editor dialog. The name of the material is not a file name: it can contain spaces, numbers, and special characters.
The name field displays only 16 characters, but a material name can be longer than that.
To make a copy of a preview material:
■ On the Material Editor toolbar, click Make Material Copy on page
5346.
To get a material from a scene:
If a material that you want to change has been saved in the scene, but not in the Material Editor, you can load the material by getting it from the scene.
1 Click a sample slot to make it active.
Be careful not to click the sample slot of a material you want to use later.
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2 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Get Material on page 5341.
A modeless Material/Map Browser on page 5290 is displayed.
3 In the Browse From group box at the upper left, make sure that either
Selected or Scene is chosen.
The Selected option lists only materials in the current selection. If no objects are selected, the list of materials is blank.
The Scene option lists all the materials currently in the scene.
4 In the list of materials, double-click the name of the material you want.
You can also drag the material name to the sample slot.
The material you chose replaces the previous material in the active sample slot.
WARNING When you get a material from a scene, it is initially a hot material on page 8006.
To apply a material to objects in a scene:
■ Drag the sample slot that contains the material you want to apply to an
object in the scene. If the object isn't selected, or if it's the only object selected in the scene, the material is applied immediately. If the object is one of several selected objects in the scene, the software prompts you to choose whether to apply the material to the single object only or to the whole selection (the latter is the default choice).
You can also apply materials to a selection by clicking Assign Material
To Selection on page 5344 on the Material Editor toolbar.
NOTE When you apply a material to an object or selection, that material becomes a hot material on page 8006 (its sample slot is displayed with white corner brackets). When you change the properties of a hot material, the scene immediately updates to reflect those changes. Every object with that material changes its appearance, not just the objects in the current selection.
To remove a material from an object:
1 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Get Material.
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The Material/Map Browser appears.
2 Drag the entry NONE from the top of the list in the Browser to the object.
The object now has no material applied to it.
To make a material no longer hot so it doesn't change the current scene,
click Make Material Copy on page 5346.
To put a material back into a scene:
■ On the Material Editor toolbar, click Put Material To Scene on page
5343. The material in the active sample slot is now a hot material on page 8006.
The Put Material button is available only when (1) the material in the active sample slot has the same name as a material in a scene, and (2) the material in the active sample slot is not hot. In other words, this command is meant to fit into the following overall sequence of handling materials:
■ You create a hot material either by applying it to objects in the scene
or by getting it from the scene.
■ You make a copy of the material.
■ You make changes to the copy of the material.
■ You update the scene by putting the changed material back into the
scene. These steps are not as immediate as changing a material while it is hot, but they help you avoid changing the scene's materials unintentionally or in unexpected ways.
When a material in the Material Editor is applied to objects in the scene, you can select the objects from the Material Editor.
To select objects that have the same material applied:
When a material in the Material Editor is applied to objects in the scene, you can select the objects from the Material Editor.
1 Click a sample slot that contains a material in the scene.
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White corner brackets indicate materials that are in the scene.
2 Click Select By Material on page 5340.
This button is unavailable unless the active sample slot contains a material in the scene.
The Select Objects dialog on page 228 opens. The names of objects with the active material applied are highlighted when the dialog appears.
3 Click Select to select objects that have the active material applied to them.
You can also change the selection by choosing other objects. If you change the selection, you can then apply the active material to newly selected objects by clicking Assign Material To Selection on page 5344.
To get a material from a library:
1 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Get Material on page 5341.
A modeless Material/Map Browser on page 5290 is displayed.
2 In the Browse From group box at the upper left, choose Material Library
if necessary.
If you have opened a library, the list of materials shows the contents of the library.
If you haven't opened a library, click Open in the File group on the Browser. This opens the Open Material Library file dialog; use it to open a material library. After you open the library, its contents appear in the list of materials.
3 In the list of materials, double-click the name of the material you want.
You can also drag the name of the material to the sample slot.
The material you chose replaces the previous material in the active sample slot.
To save a material in a library:
1 Click the sample slot that has the material you want to save.
2 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Put To Library on page 5348.
3 A Put To Library dialog on page 5372 appears.
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4 Change the material name or leave it as is, and then click OK.
The material is saved in the currently open library. If no library is open, a new library is created. You can save the new library as a file using the
Material/Map Browser on page 5290 file controls.
Interface
The Material Library interface consists of a menu bar at the top, sample slots (the spheres) below the menu bar, and toolbars along the bottom and side of the sample slots. For links to topics describing these interface elements as well as overviews of materials and maps, see the end of this section.
The Material Library interface also includes a number of rollouts whose contents depend on the active material (click a material's sample slot to make it active). Each rollout contains standard controls such as drop-down lists, check boxes, numeric fields with spinners, and color swatches.
In many cases, associated with a control (typically to its right) is a map shortcut button: a small, square, blank button, which you can click to apply a map to the control. If you have assigned a map to a control, the button displays the letter M. An uppercase M means that the corresponding map is assigned and active. A lowercase m means that the map is assigned but inactive (turned off). You turn maps on and off with the check boxes on the Maps rollout on page 5414 (see this procedure on page ? and the one following it). You can also right-click the map shortcut button to access functions such as copy and paste (see Copying and Pasting: Right-Click Menu for Materials, Maps, Bitmaps,
and Colors on page 5301).
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For choosing materials, see Material/Map Browser on page 5290. For applying materials using drag and drop techniques, see Dragging and Dropping Maps
and Materials on page 5310.
For an overview of how to use the Material Editor, see Designing Materials on page 5260.
For the user interface elements in Material Editor and the different materials and map types, see the following topics:
Material Editor Menu Bar on page 5321
Sample Slots on page 5304
Material Editor Tools on page 5317
Types of Materials on page 5379
Types of Maps on page 5767
For information about how to animate materials, see Animating Materials on page 5361.
Material/Map Browser
Main toolbar > Material Editor > Get Material > Material/Map Browser
Rendering menu > Material/Map Browser
Material Editor > Click Material Type button or Map Type button. > Material/Map Browser
Procedures on page 5293 Interface on page 5295
The Material/Map Browser lets you choose a material on page 8041, map on page 8036, or mental ray shader on page 5974.
When you click Get Material on page 5341, the Browser that is displayed is modeless (you can leave it displayed while you do other work). However, when you display the Browser by clicking the Type on page 5361 button, a map assignment button in the Environment dialog on page 6689, or from a projector light (see Advanced Effects Rollout on page 5108), it appears as a modal dialog with OK and Cancel buttons.
You can leave the modeless Browser displayed, and drag materials from its listings to material or map sample slots and buttons in the user interface. When the Browser displays a Material Library, you can also add materials to the library by dragging them from the Material Editor sample slots on page
5304.
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When you double-click a material, map, or shader in the Browser, it places that material, map, or shader in the Material Editor's active sample slot. It automatically chooses between an instance or a copy, as follows:
■ Browsing New Materials: Creates a new material.
■ Browsing a Library: Makes a copy.
■ Browsing the Material Editor, Scene, or Selected: Depends on the status of
the map or material.
When you browse the Material Editor, the Scene, or Selected objects, the choice between making a copy or an instance depends on the status of the material, as follows:
■ If the material or map is already in the active slot, the Browser does
nothing.
■ If the material or map is in some other sample slot, the Browser puts a
copy in the active slot.
■ In all other cases, the Browser makes an instance of the material or map.
Browsing mental ray Materials and Maps
When you use the mental ray renderer on page 6230, you might want to use the materials and shaders that provide effects for this renderer only. (The default scanline renderer renders these materials and shaders only as black or white, or it simply ignores their effects.) The Material/Map Browser lists mental ray maps and materials only if you assign the mental ray renderer as the currently active renderer.
Once you have enabled the renderer, when you use the Browser, it shows mental ray materials and shaders. Materials are displayed with a yellow sphere, rather than blue for standard materials, and shaders are displayed with a yellow parallelogram, rather than green as for standard maps.
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mental ray maps in the browser's list are shown with yellow icons.
When you use the mental ray Connection rollout on page 5385, or other shader buttons specific to mental ray materials and shaders, the shaders that appear in the Browser's list are restricted to those that the mental ray renderer allows for that particular shader component. By default, only shaders that ship with 3ds Max are listed. If you have acquired other shader libraries, you might see the names of shaders that are not mentioned in this reference.
NOTE You can see the listing of materials, maps, or shaders that are incompatible with the current renderer, if you turn on the Incompatible toggle in the Show group, as described under “Interface,” below.
See also:
■ Material/Map Navigator on page 5357
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Procedures
To navigate materials with the Browser:
TIP Use the Browser primarily in Root Only mode, to see only the top levels of
the materials. This provides a simpler view of your materials, and speeds redraws when you're using any of the icon display modes. (You can also create thumbnails to speed up redraws, as described below.)
1 In the Material Editor, choose any sample slot you want that contains a
complex, multilevel material.
2 In the Browser > Browse From group, choose Active Slot mode to display
all levels of the active sample slot.
3 Click any of the items in the Browser's material/map list to move to that
level of the current material.
4 When you want to switch to a different material, select its sample slot in
the Material Editor, and its hierarchy will appear in the Browser.
5 Again, click the items in the Browser to change levels.
To delete an assigned map:
1 While viewing the map parameters, click the Map Type button.
2 In the Material/Map Browser, choose NONE as the new map type.
TIP You can also remove a material or map by dragging the NONE item
from the Browser over to the object or map button.
To merge material libraries:
1 In the Browse From group, choose Mtl Library, and then click the Merge
button.
2 In the Merge Material Library dialog on page 5371, select a material library
other than the current library, or select a 3ds Max or VIZ Render (DRF on page 7167) scene.
A Merge dialog on page 5370 is displayed, listing all materials in the specified library, or all materials assigned to the 3ds Max or VIZ Render file. Below the list are All and None buttons to help in the selection.
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3 Select the materials in the list that you want to merge, and then click
OK.
The selected materials are merged into the current material library.
4 Save the library to save your changes.
To save the sample spheres as thumbnail images:
1 Open the Browser. In the Browse From group, choose Mtl Library.
2 Choose View Small Icons.
3 Display all of the icons in the library by either scrolling through all of
them, or by enlarging the Browser so that all of the icons have been displayed at least once.
The action of displaying the icons automatically creates thumbnails in memory.
IMPORTANT If you want to include thumbnails of the sub-materials and maps, be sure to turn off Root Only.
4 Save the library.
When you save the library, you save the thumbnail images of the samples as they appeared in the Browser at that time. If you change any of the materials or maps later, you must re-save the library in order to update the thumbnails. If you do not re-save the library after altering or adding a materials, the icon of the material will still appear correctly, but it will be rerendered when it first appears in the Browser, while all the other icons will appear immediately.
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Interface
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The Material/Map Browser contains the following controls:
Material/Map list The main part of the Material/Map Browser dialog is a scrollable list of materials and maps. The list indicates a material with a blue sphere, and indicates a map with a green parallelogram. When you list both materials and maps, the materials are listed first.
NOTE Icons of materials and maps for which Show Standard/Hardware Map in
Viewport on page 5350 is on are red.
Also, the names of instanced on page 8014 materials and maps appear in boldface.
Both of these effects are shown in the following illustration:
Text entry As you enter a material name in this field, the first matching text item is selected in the list. Press Enter to select the next matching name, and so on.
For example, if you enter ch when the list includes the material names Cherry Red, Chrome Blue, and Chrome Zinc, Cherry Red is selected first. Press Enter, and the Chrome Blue is selected. Press Enter again, and Chrome Zinc is selected.
The search is not case-sensitive.
Sample slot Below the text-entry field is a single sample slot. This displays a sample of the current selection. You can drag the sample to any other sample slot or material button. The sample slot display is interruptible, so you can quickly click from one list item to the next without waiting. In addition, if you complete the display of one sample, then move on to another sample, when you return to the first sample, it displays instantly.
Tool buttons
The first part of this row of buttons controls how you view the list. The second part is for managing material libraries.
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To speed up the display of the sample spheres in the Browser, the smaller of the sample spheres (those displayed when you choose View Small Icons or View List + Icons) can be saved as thumbnail images in the material library file. (See the Procedures for this topic, above.)
Keep in mind that the saved thumbnails increase the size of the material library file.
View List Displays the materials and maps in list format. Blue spheres are materials. Green parallelograms are maps. The green parallelograms turn red if Show Map in Viewport is on for a material.
View List + Icons Displays the materials and maps in a list with small
icons.
View Small Icons Displays the materials and maps as small icons. As you move the mouse over the icons, tooltip labels pop up, showing you the name of the material or map.
View Large Icons Displays the materials and maps as large icons.
The large icons are labeled with the name of the material or map and are displayed using progressive refinement—samples are rendered quickly, with large pixels, then rendered a second time in greater detail.
Update Scene Materials from Library Updates materials in the scene
with the materials of the same name stored in the library.
When you click Update Scene Materials from Library, the Update Scene
Materials dialog on page 5377 is displayed. This dialog lists materials in the
library that have the same name as materials in the scene. In the list, select the materials you want to update in the scene, and then click OK.
If no materials exist in the scene that match the names in the library, an alert informs you of this.
This button is available only when the Browser is viewing a library.
Delete from Library Removes the selected material or map from the library display. The library on disk is not affected until you save it. Use Open to reload the original library from disk. This button is only active when you select a named material that exists in the current library.
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This button is available only when the Browser is viewing a library.
Clear Material Library Removes all materials from the library display.
The library on disk is not affected until you save it. Use Open to reload the original library from disk.
This button is available only when the Browser is viewing a library.
Browse From group
The controls in this group choose the source of the materials displayed in the material/map list.
Material Library Displays the contents of a material library file from disk. When you set this option, the buttons under File become active (see below).
You can also load a library from a MAX file. When browsing from the Material Library in the Material/Map Browser, choose Open, and then choose 3ds Max (*.max) from Files of type. Select and load a .max file. All materials assigned in that scene are listed in the Browser. To convert the collection of materials to a library file, click Save, and save it as a MAT (.mat) file.
Material Editor Displays the contents of the sample slots.
Active Slot Displays the contents of the currently active sample slot.
This option is unavailable in the modal version of the Browser.
When you choose this mode, all check boxes in the Show group box are made available. The entire material and map tree of the active material is displayed, regardless of the state of these check boxes in other Browse From modes.
You can also use Active Slot mode to navigate the hierarchy of the active material. When Active Slot is chosen, clicking an item in the material/map list moves Material Editor controls to that level of the material.
Selected Displays the material applied to the selected objects.
Scene Displays all materials applied to objects in the scene.
All maps assigned to the scene, including Environment Background or spotlight projector maps, are displayed in the Browser list.
New Displays the set of material/map types for you to create a new material.
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Show group
These options filter what is displayed in the list. Either Materials or Maps is always on, and both can be on at the same time. The first two options can be unavailable, depending on the active Browse From and View settings.
Materials Turns display of materials and sub-materials on or off.
This is always unavailable in the modal version of the Browser.
Maps Turns display of maps on or off.
This is always unavailable in the modal version of the Browser.
Incompatible When on, displays materials or maps and shaders that are incompatible with the currently active renderer. The incompatible materials are displayed in gray. You can still assign incompatible materials, maps, or shaders to buttons where they would be legal, but if you use the current renderer, the results might not be correct. Default=off.
Root/Object group
Root Only When on, the material/map list displays only the root of the material hierarchy. When off, the list displays the full hierarchy.
The default state of Root Only depends on how you display the Browser. Generally, when you display the modeless Browser, you're selecting materials rather than maps (to begin with), so Root Only is on. However, when you display the modal Browser (by clicking a map button anywhere in the user interface), Root Only is off so you can see all the maps.
By Object This is available only when you're browsing from either Scene or Selected. When on, the list displays materials by their object assignment in the scene. At the left are the names of the objects arranged alphabetically, with a yellow cube icons as in Track View on page 3503. Applied materials are shown as children of the objects. When off, the list displays only material names.
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File group
This button group is displayed when you've chosen Material Library, Material Editor, Selected, or Scene in the Browse From group. All four buttons are displayed only when browsing from the Material Library; otherwise, only the Save As button appears.
Open Opens a material library.
Merge Merges materials from another material library or scene. When you
click Merge, the Merge Material Library dialog on page 5371 is displayed. This file dialog lets you choose a material library or a scene. When you choose a library or scene to merge, the Merge dialog on page 5370 is displayed. This lets you select which materials to merge. If there are duplicate names among the materials you're merging, the Duplicate Name dialog on page 5368 is displayed so you can resolve the name conflicts.
Save Saves the open material library.
Save As Saves the open material library under another name.
Display group
This group of radio buttons is displayed only when you've chosen New under Browse From. It controls what types of maps the Browser displays in the material/map list. (The Browser displays materials regardless of this setting.)
2D Maps Lists only 2D map types.
3D Maps Lists only 3D (procedural) on page 8097 map types.
Compositors Lists only compositor map types.
Color Mods Lists only color modifier map types.
Other Lists reflection and refraction map types.
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All (The default.) Lists all map types.
Copying and Pasting: Right-Click Menu for Materials, Maps, Bitmaps, and Colors
Material Editor > Right-click a Type button, sub-materials button, map button, bitmap button, or color swatch.
Elsewhere in the user interface > Right-click a map button or color swatch.
A set of right-click pop-up menus in the Material Editor (and elsewhere in the program's user interface) lets you copy and paste, and otherwise manage materials, maps, bitmaps, and colors.
You see these menus only if copy and paste actions are appropriate. For example, if you copy a material and then right-click a map button, nothing happens.
Material Right-Click Menu
When you right-click a button that represents a material, this menu appears. This includes the Type button on page 5361 for a material, and sub-material buttons such as you find in the Multi/Sub-Object material on page 5720, the
Blend material on page 5708, and others.
Cut Makes a copy of the material. If you right-click a sub-material button, this also removes the material from that sub-material component. If you right-click the Type button, Cut is equivalent to Copy.
Copy Makes a copy of the material.
Paste (Copy) Pastes a copy from the copy buffer.
This item doesn't appear if you haven't yet copied a material.
Paste (Instance) Pastes an instance from the copy buffer.
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This item doesn't appear if you haven't yet copied a material.
Clear If you right-click a sub-material button, Clear removes the material from that sub-material component without making a copy of it. If you right-click the Type button, Clear has no effect.
Map Right-Click Menu
When you right-click the button for a map component (a “map slot”), the menu you see depends on whether a map has been assigned yet.
When a Map Has Been Assigned
The following menu appears if a map has been assigned:
Cut Removes the assigned map, and puts a copy of it in the copy buffer.
Copy Copies the map without removing it.
Paste (Copy) Pastes a copy from the copy buffer.
This item doesn't appear if you haven't yet copied a map.
Clear Removes the assigned map without copying it.
Open For bitmaps on page 5795, launches whichever application is associated
with the currently assigned 2D map.
This item does not appear for other map types such as procedural maps.
Reveal Location in Explorer Launches a copy of Windows Explorer to display the folder where the map is saved.
When No Map Has Been Assigned
If no map has been assigned, all you can do is paste another:
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Paste (Copy) Pastes a copy from the copy buffer.
Paste (Instance) Pastes an instance from the copy buffer.
When No Map Has Been Either Assigned or Copied
If no map has been assigned and you haven't copied a map yet, then no right-click menu appears at all.
Bitmap Right-Click Menu
This menu appears when you click a button that specifies an external bitmap on page 7926. See Bitmap 2D Map on page 5795.
Copy Copies the bitmap.
Paste Pastes the bitmap from the copy buffer.
Open Launches whichever application is associated with the bitmap.
Reveal Location in Explorer Launches a copy of Windows Explorer to display
the folder where the bitmap is saved.
Color Swatch Right-Click Menu
This menu appears when you right-click a color swatch.
NOTE This menu does not apply to the VertexPaint modifier's Color Palette on page 1984, which has its own right-click menu.
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Copy Copies the color.
Pastes Pastes a color from the copy buffer.
Sample Slots
Material Editor > Sample slots display
The sample slots let you maintain and preview materials on page 8041 and maps. on page 8036 Each slot previews a single material or map. You can change the material by using the Material Editor controls, and you can apply the material to objects in the scene. The easiest way to do this is to drag the material from the sample slot to objects in viewports. See Dragging and Dropping Maps and
Materials on page 5310.
IMPORTANT While the Material Editor can edit no more than 24 materials at a time, a scene can contain an unlimited number of materials. When you are through editing one material, and have applied it to objects in the scene, you can use that sample slot to get on page 5341 a different material from the scene (or create a new one) and then edit it.
You can display a sample slot in a window of its own. This magnifies the sample slot, which can make it easier to preview the material. You can resize
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the magnified window to make it even larger. To magnify a sample slot, double-click it, or right-click and choose Magnify from the pop-up menu. See
Sample Slot Right-Click Menu on page 5308.
The Material Editor has 24 sample slots. You can view them all at once, six at a time (the default), or 15 at a time. When you view fewer than 24 slots at once, scroll bars let you move among them. See Material Editor Options on page 5335 and Sample Slot Right-Click Menu on page 5308.
A material in a slot is shown on a sample object. By default, the object is a sphere. Use the Sample Type flyout on page 5328 to change the sample object.
Sample slot showing a material
By default, a standalone map in a slot fills the whole slot. This is when the slot shows only a standalone map at the top of a tree; when the map is assigned to a material, the slot shows it as part of the material, mapped to the sample object. See Get Material on page 5341 and Material Editor Options on page 5335.
Sample slot showing a map
The Material Editor renders only the active sample sphere for the current frame.
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Hot and Cool Materials
A sample slot is "hot" on page 8006 when the material in the slot is assigned to one or more surfaces in the scene. When you use the Material Editor to adjust a hot sample slot, the material in the scene changes at the same time.
The corners of a sample slot indicate whether the material is a hot material:
■ No triangle: The material is not used in the scene.
■ Outlined white triangle: The material is hot. In other words, it's instanced
in the scene. Changes you make to the material in the sample slot will change the material displayed in the scene.
■ Solid white triangle: The material is not only hot, but is applied to the
currently selected object.
Left: "Hot" material applied to currently selected object.
Middle: "Hot" material assigned to scene but not to currently selected object.
Right: "Cool" material: active but not assigned to scene.
A material is "cool" on page 7943 if it is not applied to any object in the scene.
To make a hot sample slot cool, click Make Material Copy on page 5346. This copies the material in the sample slot on top of itself so that it's no longer used in the scene.
You can have the same material (with the same name) in more than one sample slot, but only one slot containing that material can be hot. You can have more than one hot sample slot, as long as each has a different material.
If you drag to copy a material from a hot slot to another slot, the destination slot is cool, and the original slot remains hot.
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See also:
■ Sample Slot Right-Click Menu on page 5308
■ Dragging and Dropping Maps and Materials on page 5310
■ Creating a Custom Sample Object on page 5314
Procedures
To use a sample slot:
■ Click the sample slot to make it active.
The active sample slot is displayed with a white border around it.
The sample slot shows a sample object shaded with a material. (By default, the sample object is a sphere.) The sample object is lit by a light source above it and slightly toward the viewer. For the sphere, the highlight is in the upper-left quadrant. The diffuse color shows most clearly above and to the left of the highlight, shading toward the ambient color at the sphere's lower right.
To change the preview shape:
1 Make sure the sample slot of the material you want to view is active.
2 Use the Sample Type flyout on page 5328 to choose the shape you want to
view. The flyout gives you three options: sphere (the default), cylinder, or box.
The new shape is displayed in the sample slot, with the material mapped
to it.
To render the current mapping level:
1 Move to the level of the map hierarchy that you want to render.
2 Right-click in the sample slot, and choose Render Map from the pop-up
menu.
The Render Map dialog on page 5373 is displayed.
3 Choose Single or the range of frames you want to render.
4 In the Dimensions group box, specify the pixel resolution of the map.
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5 Click the Files button, and specify a path and file name for the file. Make
sure Save To File is on unless you want to see the image only in a Rendered
Frame Window on page 6073.
6 Click Render.
A Rendered Frame Window appears displaying the map. If Save To File is on, the image is also saved to disk.
Sample Slot Right-Click Menu
Material Editor > Right-click active sample slot.
When you right-click the active sample slot, a pop-up menu is displayed. For other sample slots, click or right-click once to select them, then right-click to use the pop-up menu.
The pop-up menu is available in magnified sample slot windows. See the "Magnify" option, below.
Interface
The pop-up menu has these options:
Drag/Copy Sets dragging a sample slot to copy mode. When on, dragging a sample slot copies the material from one sample slot to another, or from the sample slot to an object in the scene or a material button.
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Drag/Rotate Sets dragging a sample slot to rotate mode. When on, dragging in the sample slot rotates the sample object. This helps you preview the material. Drag over the object to rotate it about its X or Y axis; drag in the corners of the sample slot to rotate the object about its Z axis. In addition, if you press Shift before dragging in the center, the rotation is constrained to the vertical or horizontal axis, depending on your initial drag direction.
If you have a three-button mouse and are using Windows NT, the middle mouse button rotates the sample object while Drag/Copy mode is active.
Reset Rotation Resets the sample object to its default orientation.
Render Map Renders the current map, creating a bitmap or an AVI file (if the
map is animated). Only the current map level renders. That is, the rendering shows the image displayed when Show End Result is turned off.
If you're at a material level instead of a map level, this menu item is disabled.
Options Displays the Material Editor Options dialog on page 5335. This is an alternative to clicking the Options button.
Magnify Generates a magnified view of the current sample slot. The magnified sample is displayed in its own, floating (modeless) window. You can display up to 24 magnified windows, but you can't display the same sample slot in more than one magnified window at a time. You can resize magnify windows. Clicking a magnify window activates the sample slot, and vice versa.
Shortcut Double-click a sample slot to display the magnified window.
The magnify window's title bar displays the contents of the editable material
name field on page 5360. It varies depending on which level of the material is
active.
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Auto Turn off to prevent the magnified window from updating automatically. This can save rendering time, especially when you have resized the magnified window to make it larger. Default=on.
Update Click to update the magnified window. This button is unavailable unless Auto is turned off.
Dragging a different sample slot to the magnify window changes the contents of the magnify window.
Sample Windows options
The Material Editor always has 24 sample slots available. You can choose to display fewer sample slots at a larger size. When you do, scroll bars let you move around among the sample slots.
3 X 2 Sample Windows Displays a 3 x 2 array of sample slots. (The default: 6 windows.)
5 X 3 Sample Windows Displays a 5 X 3 array of sample slots. (15 windows.)
6 X 4 Sample Windows Displays a 6 X 4 array of sample slots. (24 windows.)
Dragging and Dropping Maps and Materials
You can move materials from sample slots to objects using a drag-and-drop operation. You can also drag to and from map and material buttons. See the
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following lists to determine where in the interface you can drag from and drag to.
When dragging materials, use the Undo command on page 262 to cancel material assignments.
Where You Can Drag From
■ Sample Slots on page 5304
The content you drag from a sample slot is always at the top level of the sample slot, regardless of which level is currently displayed. If the sample slot contains a material, you can't drag from the sample slot to a map button, even if you're at the map level of the material.
■ Material preview and map preview
■ The Material Editor Type button on page 5361
■ Material/Map Browser on page 5290 lists (text or icon lists)
You can't drag from the modal version of the Browser (when OK and Cancel buttons are present).
■ The sample slot in the Browser
■ Material map buttons (see below)
■ A projector light map button (see Advanced Effects Rollout on page 5108)
■ The Environment Background on page 6689 map button
■ Fog on page 6707 Color and Opacity map buttons
■ Displace modifier on page 1344 map buttons
Material Map Buttons
The material map buttons you can drag from include:
■ The buttons in the Maps rollout on page 5414
■ The small shortcut map buttons on the Basic Parameters rollouts on page
5406.
■ Any map buttons at any level.
■ Sub-material buttons, such as those found in the Multi/Sub-Object material
on page 5720.
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Where You Can Drag To
■ All of the items in the previous list.
■ Objects in viewports.
Drag from a material button, sample slot, or Browser listing into the viewport and over an object. When you release the mouse, the material is applied.
If you drag a material over two or more selected objects, an alert message asks if you want to apply the material to the object or to the selection. Choose the option you want, and click OK.
■ The Material Editor Type button on page 5361.
You can drag to the Type button only from the Browser. If the Type button shows a standalone map, you can drag only a map to it. If it shows a material type, you can drag only a material to it.
■ All of the items in the previous list, except that you can drag to the Browser
only when it displays a material library. When the Browser is set to browse from a Material Library, dragging materials and maps into the Browser adds them to the library.
■ Any palette in the Content Browser. You can drag individual materials,
selections of materials, or entire panels or palettes into the Content Browser.
■ A Face, Polygon, Patch, or Element sub-object selection of an editable
surfacemesh object (mesh, patch, or poly).
■ A Face, Polygon, Patch, or Element sub-object selection created by the Edit
Mesh modifier on page 1353 or Edit Patch on page 1360; or by one of these
selection modifiers: Mesh Select on page 1527, Patch Select on page 1592, or
Poly Select on page 1613.
See also:
■ Applying a Material to an Object on page 5278
■ Drag and Drop Sub-Object Material Assignment on page 5312
Drag and Drop Sub-Object Material Assignment
You can apply a material to a selection of renderable sub-objects, such as faces in a mesh. In the Material Editor, you can use Assign Material to Selection on
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page 5344. You can also drag the material from the Material Editor or the
Material/Map Browser on page 5290 to the selected faces. This can create a new Multi/Sub-Object material on page 5720 on the fly.
You can disable drag-and-drop of materials to sub-objects. To do so, go to the
General tab on page 7744 of the Preferences dialog on page 7743, and in the
Sub-Materials group, turn off Assign Automatically. This check box is on by default.
How the Multi/Sub-Object Material Is Created
The Multi/Sub-Object material is created in one of three ways, depending on what material is already applied to the selected sub-objects:
■ No material applied
If the selected faces have no material applied, a new Multi/Sub-Object material is created. The dragged material becomes a sub-material in the new material. If material IDs already exist, they are preserved.
■ Existing material applied (other than Multi/Sub-Object material)
A new Multi/Sub-Object material is created and applied to the selected faces. The existing material is moved into the Multi/Sub-Object material and becomes the first sub-material. Unselected faces get material ID #1, the selected faces get material ID #2, and the dragged material becomes part of the Multi/Sub-Object material. Existing material IDs are not preserved.
■ Multi/sub-object material applied
If the existing Multi/Sub-Object material is already applied more than once in the scene, the material is copied and the new copy is applied to the selected faces.
If the Multi/Sub-Object material is only applied once in the scene, then the existing material is used. The dragged material is added to the existing Multi/Sub-Object material.
If the dragged material already is a part of the Multi/Sub-Object material, then the selected faces receive the corresponding material ID number. If the selected faces all have the same material ID number, and no unselected faces are already using this number, then this number is used and the new material replaces the old sub-material at this ID. Otherwise, a new material ID number is assigned to the faces, and used for the dragged material. In this case, any existing material IDs are preserved.
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Procedures
To drag materials onto sub-object selections:
1 In the Modify panel > Modifier Stack rollout, choose Face as the sub-object
level.
2 Select faces of an editable mesh object.
3 Drag a material from a Material Editor sample slot to the selected faces.
4 In the Modifier Stack rollout, click to turn off Sub-Object and return to
the object level.
5 On the Material Editor, click Pick Material From Object, then use
the eyedropper to get the material from the sphere.
The new Multi/Sub-Object material appears in the active sample slot.
Creating a Custom Sample Object
Material Editor > Right-click the active sample slot. > Right-click menu > Options > Material Editor Options dialog
Material Editor > Material Editor Options > Material Editor Options dialog
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Custom sample object fits within a 100-unit cube
By default, the sample object in a sample slot is a sphere. You can use the
Sample Type flyout on page 5328 to change this to a cube or a cylinder. You can
also create a custom sample object by creating a 3ds Max scene that shows the object.
Overview of Using a Custom Sample Object
See Procedures for more details.
The scene you create should contain a single object that fits into an imaginary cube that is 100 units on each side. The object must be at the root level of the scene: it can't be linked to other objects. If more than one object is in the scene, only the first object listed in the Track View hierarchy is used as the sample object.
If the object is of a type that doesn't have a Generate Mapping Coords check box, apply a UVW Map modifier on page 1931 to it.
After you have saved the single-object scene as a MAX file, use the Custom Sample Object group in the Material Editor Options dialog on page 5335 to specify the file. When you specify the file, a new button is displayed at the
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right of the Sample Type flyout. This button, which shows an object with a question mark, displays the sample object file you chose.
If the sample object scene contains only the object, sample slots display it with default lighting. If the scene also contains a camera and lights, you can use the camera to specify the view, and the lights to light the object as you choose. Turn on Load Camera and/or Lights in the Custom Sample Object group.
Procedures
To set up a custom sample object:
1 Create a scene with a single object, such as a pyramid.
The object should fit into an imaginary cube that is 100 units on each side. Also, the object must be at the root level of the scene: it can't be linked to other objects.
If more than one object is in the scene, the Material Editor uses the first object listed in the Track View hierarchy.
2 If the object does not have built-in mapping coordinates (via a Generate
Mapping Coords check box), then assign a UVW Map modifier on page 1931 to it to provide mapping coordinates.
If the object has a Generate Mapping Coords check box, it's on by default, and the Material Editor uses those coordinates. If you want to use coordinates other than those built into the object, assign a UVW Map modifier and set up your own coordinates.
3 Save the scene as a MAX file.
4 In the Material Editor Options dialog, click the File Name button in the
Custom Sample Object group box, and choose the file that contains your object.
5 Activate the sample slot in which you want to see the custom object,
then choose the button at the far right of the Sample Type flyout.
Your custom object is displayed in the sample slot.
If the size of your object is not quite right for the sample slot, adjust its size and save the scene again. To update the sample slot so it uses the newly saved MAX file, open the Material Editor Options dialog, and then click OK.
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To use a camera and lights with the custom sample object:
1 Create a camera in the scene that contains your sample object, and then
adjust the camera to show the object as you want it seen in sample slots.
TIP Viewports have a different aspect ratio than sample slots, so using Zoom
Extents on page 7594 on the sample object usually results in the object
appearing smaller in a sample slot. Perform Zoom Extents on the object, and then before you save the file, zoom in a little farther so the object more than fills the viewport. The sample slot projection is based on the width of the sample object's geometry, not on the image in the viewport.
If more than one camera is in the scene, the Material Editor uses the first
camera listed in the Track View hierarchy.
2 If you want to use your own lighting rather than the default sample-slot
lighting, set up as many lights as you need. If you want to use the sample-slot lighting, do not add any lights to the scene.
3 Save the MAX file.
4 In the Material Editor Options dialog, specify the file as the Custom
Sample Object file.
5 Turn on Load Camera and/or Lights.
Sample Slots set to use the custom object now display the object as seen through the camera. If lights are in the scene, those lights are used in the sample slot instead of the default lights.
Material Editor Tools
Main toolbar > Material Editor
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Material Editor tools below and to the right of the sample slots
Above the Material Editor sample slots on page 5304 is the menu bar. Below and to the right of the sample slots are buttons and other controls that you use to manage and change maps and materials.
Material Editor Menu Bar on page 5321
Reflectance and Transmittance Display on page 5324
NOTE These fields are not displayed unless you change a toggle in Preferences > Advanced Lighting.
Buttons below the sample slots (the "toolbar")
Get Material on page 5341
Put Material to Scene on page 5343
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Assign Material to Selection on page 5344
Reset Map/Mtl to Default Settings on page 5345
Make Material Copy on page 5346
Make Unique on page 5346
Put to Library on page 5348
Material ID Channel on page 5348
Show Map in Viewport on page 5350
Show End Result on page 5356
Go to Parent on page 5356
Go Forward to Sibling on page 5357
Buttons to the right of the sample slots
Sample Type on page 5328
Backlight on page 5329
Background on page 5329
Sample UV Tiling on page 5330
Video Color Check on page 5332
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Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview on page 5333
Material Editor Options on page 5335
Select By Material on page 5340
Material/Map Navigator on page 5357
Controls below the toolbar
Pick Material from Object on page 5360
Material name field on page 5360
Material Type button on page 5361
Procedures
To use the Material Editor Options dialog:
1 Click Options on page 5335 to the right of the sample slots.
2 Set the options as you want, and then click OK.
To change the preview shape:
1 Activate the sample slot of the material you want to view.
2 Use the Sample Type flyout on page 5328 to choose the shape you want to
view.
The new shape is displayed in the sample slot, with the material mapped to it.
The flyout gives you three options: sphere (the default), cylinder, or box. An additional custom object option is available if you define a custom object as described in Creating a Custom Sample Object on page 5314.
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Material Editor Menu Bar
Material Editor > Menu bar
The Material Editor menu bar appears at the top of the Material Editor window. It provides another way to invoke the various Material Editor tools.
Material Menu
The Material menu provides the most commonly used Material Editor tools.
■ Get Material on page 5341
■ Pick from Object on page 5360
■ Select By Material on page 5340
■ Highlight Assets in ATS Dialog If the active material uses maps that are
tracked assets on page 7099 (typically bitmap textures), opens the Asset
Tracking dialog with the assets highlighted.
■ Assign to Selection on page 5344
■ Put to Scene on page 5343
■ Put to Library on page 5348
■ Change Material/Map Type Equivalent to clicking the Material Type
Button on page 5361.
■ Make Material Copy on page 5346
■ Launch Magnify Window Equivalent to double-clicking the active sample
slot on page 5304, or choosing Magnify on its right-click menu on page 5308.
■ Save as .FX File See DirectX Manager Rollout on page 5393.
■ Make Preview on page 5333
■ View Preview on page 5333
■ Save Preview on page 5333
■ Show End Result on page 5356
■ Show Materials in Viewport As on page 173
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■ Reset Sample Slot Rotation Returns the active sample slot's object to its
default orientation; equivalent to choosing Reset Rotation on the sample
slot right-click menu on page 5308.
■ Update Active Material If Material Editor Options dialog on page 5335 >
Update Active Only is on, choosing this updates the active material in its sample slot.
Navigation Menu
The Navigation menu provides tools that navigate a material's hierarchy.
■ Go to Parent on page 5356
■ Go Forward to Sibling on page 5357
■ Go Backward to Sibling Like Go Forward To Sibling, but navigates to the
preceding sibling map in the tree instead of the succeeding one.
Options Menu
The Options menu provides some additional tools and display choices.
■ Propagate Materials to Instances on page 5328
■ Manual Update Toggle Equivalent to the Manual Update toggle in the
Material Editor Options dialog on page 5335.
■ Copy/Rotate Drag Mode Toggle Equivalent to choosing either Drag/Copy
or Drag/Rotate on the sample slot right-click menu on page 5308.
■ Background on page 5329
■ Custom Background Toggle If you have used the Material Editor Options
dialog on page 5335 to assign a custom background, this toggles its display.
■ Backlight on page 5329
■ Cycle 3X2, 5X3, 6X4 Sample Slots Cycles through the equivalent choices
on the sample slot right-click menu on page 5308.
■ Options Opens the Material Editor Options dialog on page 5335.
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Utilities Menu
The Utilities menu provides map rendering and selecting objects by material.
■ Render Map Equivalent to choosing Render Map on the sample slot
right-click menu on page 5308.
■ Select Objects by Material on page 5340
■ Clean MultiMaterial on page 6052
■ Instance Duplicate Map on page 6058
■ Reset Material Editor Slots Replaces all materials in the Material Editor
with the default material type. This action is not undoable, but you can restore the previous state of the Material Editor with the Restore Material Editor Slots command (see below).
■ Condense Material Editor Slots Sets all unused materials in the Material
Editor to the default type, retaining only materials in the scene and moving those materials to the first slots in the editor. This action is not undoable, but you can restore the previous state of the Material Editor with the Restore Material Editor Slots command (see below).
■ Restore Material Editor Slots When you use either of the two previous
commands, 3ds Max saves the current state of the Material Editor in a buffer; using this command restores the state of the editor using the buffer contents.
TIP The buffer that holds the material definitions survives the File menu > Reset command. Thus, if you use either the Reset Material Editor Slots or the Condense Material Editor Slots function, and then reset 3ds Max, you can then use Restore Material Editor Slots to bring all materials back into the Material Editor. This makes it easy to use the same materials in different projects.
For best results, follow this procedure:
1 Save your scene.
2 Use the Reset Material Editor Slots or Condense Material Editor Slots
function.
3 Reset 3ds Max. When prompted to save the scene, click No. Otherwise,
you might lose material definitions in the Material Editor that were saved with the scene.
4 Open the Material Editor and choose Utilities menu > Restore Material
Editor Slots.
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The Material Editor status before step 2 is restored.
Reflectance and Transmittance Display
Material Editor > Reflectance and Transmittance fields (below the sample slots)
These fields show the reflectance and transmittance of the active material. Both the average value and the maximum value are shown.
NOTE These fields appear only when you turn on Material Editor > Display Reflectance & Transmittance Information on the Radiosity panel on page 7786 of the Preferences dialog.
These fields can change according to the current Show End Result setting on page 5356. When Show End Result is off, the reflectance and transmittance show the properties of the current element in the material hierarchy, not the properties of the material overall.
The reflectance and transmittance values of a material are particularly important when you are preparing a radiosity solution on page 6168 to obtain a physically accurate lighting simulation. If a material’s reflectance or transmittance values are not what your scene needs, you need to adjust these values.
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Materials and Radiosity
Upper left: Washed-out walls due to high reflectance.
Right: Better radiosity achieved by reducing the HSV Value (V) of materials in the scene.
To get good radiosity results, keep these points in mind as you design materials:
■ Before you generate a radiosity solution, check the reflectance value of all
materials in the scene, to make sure it is not too high. The reflectance of a material determines how much of the light energy it receives is subsequently used in the radiosity calculation. Keep this value within the range of the physical materials you are simulating. (See the table in the description of “Reflectance,” below.)
■ Don’t be concerned if a material preview seems too dark. For example, a
white wall with the maximum recommended reflectance of 80% appears gray. The color balance will be adjusted correctly by the exposure control on page 6732 in the final rendering.
■ Bitmaps used as diffuse textures have already been illuminated by the
scanner, digital camera, or paint program in which you created them. To bring them into the proper reflectance range, you might have to dim them
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by reducing the RGB Level value in the bitmap’s Output rollout on page
5774.
Left: Wood grain bitmap as originally photographed has too high a reflectance.
Right: Reducing the RGB Level value reduces the map’s reflectance.
Interface
Reflectance Reflectance is the percentage of diffuse light energy that is reflected from a material. When you increase a material’s HSV value (V), the material reflects more diffuse light. Decreasing a material’s Opacity also decreases its reflectance.
Typically, the reflectance of a material should never be greater than 85%. this is an unusually high value that will lead to poor-quality renderings. In the real world, even the whitest wall reflects no more than 80% of the light it receives.
One source of high reflectance can be a map assigned to the material’s diffuse component. For example, a white tile bitmap might create high reflectance. In this case, you can reduce reflectance by reducing the RGB Level in the bitmap’s Output rollout.
An alternate way to reduce a bitmapped material’s reflectance is to set the diffuse color of the material to black, and then reduce the diffuse map’s Amount (in the parent material’s Maps rollout on page 5414). You can use this method to reduce the reflectance of 3D procedural maps on page 5860 as well.
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Here are some typical reflectance ranges for common materials:
MaximumMinimumMaterial
70%20%Ceramic
70%20%Fabric
50%20%Masonry
90%30%Metal
80%30%Paint
70%30%Paper
80%20%Plastic
70%20%Stone
50%20%Wood
Transmittance Transmittance is the amount of light energy transmitted through a material. A completely opaque material has 0% transmittance.
When the material is transparent (like clear glass), the energy transmitted is specular, and light passes directly through the material (subject to refraction). The value of specular transmittance is an interaction between the material’s
Opacity value on page 5442 and its filter color on page 7976. When the filter color
is pure white, specular transmittance is the inverse of Opacity.
When the material is translucent (like frosted glass), the energy transmitted is diffuse, and scattered in all directions. The value of diffuse transmittance is based on the HSV value (V) of the translucent color on page 5447. Diffuse transmittance happens only for materials that use the Translucent shader on page 5434, or Raytrace materials on page 5490, that specify translucency.
Usually, when a material has high transmittance, it has low reflectance, and the other way around.
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Sample Type
Material Editor > Sample Type
The Sample Type flyout lets you choose which geometry to display in the active sample slot on page 5304. This flyout has three buttons:
■ Sphere (the default) Displays the material on a sphere.
■ Cylinder Displays the material on a cylinder.
■ Cube Displays the material on a cube.
■ Custom Displays the material on a custom object. This button
appears only if you have used the Material Editor Options dialog on page 5335 to specify a custom object for sample slots.
See also:
■ Creating a Custom Sample Object on page 5314
Propagate Materials to Instances
Material Editor > Options menu > Propagate Materials to Instances
When Propagate Materials To Instances is on, any material assignment you make will be propagated to all instances on page 8014 of the object in your scene, including imported AutoCAD blocks and ADT style-based objects; these object types are common in DRF files on page 7167. Assignments are also propagated to instances of Revit objects and of other instances that you've made in the current scene.
When Propagate Materials To Instances is off, materials are assigned in traditional 3ds Max fashion; each object has a unique material assignment.
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Backlight
Material Editor > Backlight
Material Editor menu > Options menu > Backlight
Left: Backlight on
Right: Backlight off
Turning on Backlight adds a backlight to the active sample slot. This button is on by default.
The effect is most easily seen with the sample spheres, where the backlight highlights the lower-right edge of the sphere.
Backlight is especially useful whenever you're creating metal on page 5427 and
Strauss on page 5431 materials. Backlight lets you see and adjust the specular
highlight created by glancing light, which is much brighter on metals.
Sample Slot Background
Material Editor > Background
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Material Editor menu > Options menu > Background
Left: Background on
Right: Background off
Turning on Background adds a multicolored checkered background to the active sample slot. The pattern background is helpful when you want to see effects of opacity and transparency.
The Material Editor Options dialog on page 5335 also lets you assign a bitmap to use as a custom background.
Sample UV Tiling
Material Editor > Sample UV Tiling
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1x1, 2x2, and 3x3 sample tiling
The buttons on the Sample UV Tiling flyout adjust the repetition of the map on page 8036 pattern on the sample object in the active sample slot.
The tiling pattern you set with this option affects only the sample slot. It has no effect on the tiling on the geometry in the scene, which you control with parameters in the map's own coordinates rollout.
■ 1 x 1 (the default) Tile once in the U dimension and once in V.
This is equivalent to no tiling at all.
■ 2 x 2 Tile twice in U and twice in V.
■ 3 x 3 Tile three times in U and three times in V.
■ 4 x 4 Tile four times in U and four times in V.
The buttons specify the number of times the pattern repeats over the surface of the sample object. Because maps are mapped spherically around the sample sphere, the tiling on page 8148 repetition covers the entire surface of the sphere. The sample cylinder maps cylindrically. The sample cube uses box mapping: the tiling appears on each side of the cube. Custom sample objects use the
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default mapping coordinates for that kind of object, unless the object has a
UVW Map modifier on page 1931 applied to it, in which case the modifier
controls the mapping.
This flyout is unavailable when the sample slot displays a standalone (top-level) map.
See also:
■ Creating a Custom Sample Object on page 5314
Video Color Check
Material Editor > Video Color Check
Left: Material with oversaturated colors
Right: Video color check shows black areas that are beyond the video threshold
Video Color Check checks the material on the sample object for colors that are beyond the safe NTSC on page 8059 or PAL on page 8078 threshold.
Such colors tend to blur or fuzz when transferred from computer to video. Pixels containing these "illegal" or "hot" colors are flagged on the sample object.
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You can have 3ds Max correct illegal colors automatically when you render, depending on the settings in the Rendering tab on page 7768 of the
Customize/Preferences dialog on page 7743.
Use this option as a guide only. The colors in a rendered scene depend not only on the material color but also on the intensity and color of the lighting. A material that shows as safe in the sample slot might become illegal if rendered under several bright lights. A safe practice for video is to use colors whose saturation is less than 80 to 85 percent.
Procedures
To check for illegal video colors:
1 On the Material Editor, turn on Video Color Check on page 5332.
The active sample slot now renders "illegal" pixels as black. Illegal pixels have a color that is beyond the safe video threshold.
If Video Color Check detects illegal colors, try reducing the saturation of the material colors in question.
2 You can also check for legal video colors when you render a scene.
To change the video system:
NTSC on page 8059 is the default video system to check. You can change the
video checking to PAL on page 8078.
■ In the Tools menu > Options > Options dialog > Rendering panel on page
7768 > Video Color Check group, change the setting to PAL. The sample slot does not automatically update when you change the video system preference. Turn video checking off and back on to see the change.
NOTE The Rendering panel also shows options for choosing alternate ways to display illegal pixels. These apply to renderings only, not to the sample slots in the Material Editor.
Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview
Material Editor > Make/Play/Save Preview flyout
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Material Editor menu > Material menu > Make Preview, View Preview, or Save Preview
You can use animated maps to add movement to a scene. For example, to simulate a sky view, you could map an animation of moving clouds to a clerestory window. The Make Preview options let you experiment with the effect in the Material Editor before you apply it to your scene.
The buttons on the Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview flyout let you preview the effect of an animated map on the object in a sample slot (see
Sample Type on page 5328 for alternatives to the default sphere.) You can use
an AVI file on page 7326, or IFL file on page 7339 as a source for the animation. The finished preview is saved as a new AVI file and automatically played back. You can also view the preview in a sample slot by dragging the time slider.
This flyout has three options:
■ Make Preview Displays a Create Material Preview dialog on page
5366 to create an AVI file of the animated material. When the preview is complete, it is saved as _medit.avi in the \previews subdirectory. The file is then opened in the Windows Media Player and played back.
Without this option, the only other way to preview a complex animated material in real time is to use the renderer on page 6121 to render an animated sequence and save it to an AVI file, a digital disk recorder, or a video tape recorder.
■ Play Preview Uses the Windows Media Player to play the current
_medit.avi preview file in the \previews subdirectory.
■ Save Preview Saves the _medit.avi preview to an AVI file of a
different name in the \previews subdirectory.
Procedures
To create a preview of an animated material:
1 Choose Make Preview from the flyout.
2 In the Create Material Preview dialog, set the preview conditions you
want, and then click OK.
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The preview is created, and then plays.
To play back a preview of an animated material:
■ Choose Play Preview from the flyout.
The Material Editor starts the Windows Media Player. The Player then loads the current _medit.avi preview file in the \previews subdirectory and plays it in a separate window.
To view an animated material in a sample slot:
■ Drag the time slider through the range of frames.
By default, all sample slots with animated maps update at the same time. To change this, see Material Editor Options Dialog on page 5335.
To save a preview under a different name:
1 Choose Save Preview from the flyout.
The Material Editor displays a File Save dialog.
2 Enter a new name for the preview, and then click OK to save the file in
the \previews subdirectory.
To play a renamed preview:
1 Choose Tools menu > Display Image.
2 In the View File dialog, change to the \previews subdirectory.
3 Select the renamed preview file and click Open.
The preview is played in a separate window.
Material Editor Options
Material Editor > Material Editor Options
Material Editor menu > Options menu > Options
This button displays the Material Editor Options dialog to let help you control how materials and maps are displayed in the sample slots on page 5304.
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These settings are “sticky”; they survive a reset, and even quitting and restarting 3ds Max.
NOTE The controls to assign a renderer for the sample slots are on the Assign
Renderer rollout on page 6135.
Interface
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Manual Update When on, the sample slots don't update their contents until you click them. This option affects only the updating of the sample slots; it doesn't affect the icon displays in the Browser. Default=off.
Don't Animate When on, animated maps are not updated in the sample slots while you play an animation or drag the time slider. However, the animation is updated to the current frame when you stop the animation or release the time slider. An animated map can use an AVI file on page 7326 or IFL file on page 7339as a source. Default=off.
Animate Active Only When on, only the active sample slot is animated when you play an animation or drag the time slider. This option is good for situations where you have multiple animated materials in the Material Editor, but you only need to see one at a time. This check box is unavailable when Don’t Animate is on. Default=off.
Update Active Only When on, sample slots do not load or generate maps until you make one sample slot active. This can save time while you use the Material Editor, especially when your scene uses a lot of materials with maps. Default=off.
Antialias Turns on antialiasing on page 7904in the sample slots. Default=off.
If the mental ray renderer is used to render sample slots, this setting is disregarded. The mental ray renderer's sampling values control antialiasing.
Progressive Refinement Turns on progressive refinement in the sample slots. When on, samples are rendered quickly, with large pixels, then rendered a second time in greater detail. Default=off.
Simple Multi Display Below Top Level When on, the sample sphere for a Multi/Sub-Object material displays the multiple patches only at the top level of the material. The sub-materials are displayed over the entire sphere. When you use nested Multi/Sub-Object materials, the multiple patches again appear at the top level of the nested material, but the sample sphere is again whole when displaying any of the sub-materials. Default=on.
Display Maps as 2D When on, sample slots display maps, including standalone maps, in 2D. The map fills the entire slot. When off, maps are displayed on the sample object, as materials are. Default=on.
Custom Background Lets you specify a custom background for the sample slots, instead of the default checkers background. Click the file-assignment button to display a file dialog from which you can select the custom background. This can be any bitmap format supported by 3ds Max. Turn on Custom Background to use the new background instead of the checkered
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background. The custom background is stored in the 3dsmax.ini on page 83 file, so it is available from session to session. Default=off.
Display Multi/Sub-Object Material Propagation Warning Toggles display of warning dialog when you apply a Multi/Sub-Object material on page 5720 to an instanced ADT style-based object.
Auto-Select Texture Map Size When on, and you have a material that uses a texture map set to Use Real-World Scale, ensures that the map will be displayed correctly on the sample sphere. Turn off to be able to enable Use Real-World Map Size For Geometry Samples (see following).
NOTE If a material uses several texture maps at different levels, and only one is set to Use Real-World Scale, the sample sphere will render with real-world size coordinates.
Use Real-World Map Size For Geometry Samples This is a global setting that allows you to manually choose which style of texture coordinates are used. When on, real-world coordinates are used for the sample slot display. Otherwise, the old style of 3ds Max mapping coordinates is active. When off, you must turn on Use Real-World Scale on the map's Coordinates rollout to see the sample sphere as you'd expect. Available only when Auto-Select Texture Map Size (above) is off. Default=off.
Top Light color/Back Light color Specify the two lights used in the sample slots. Click the color swatch to alter the color of either light. Adjust the Multiplier spinners to multiply the values (intensity) of the lights.
Use the Default buttons to return to the initial settings.
Ambient Light Shows the color of ambient light on page 7906 used in the sample slots. Click the color swatch to change the color. When the lock button is on, changing the Ambient Light color here or on the Environment panel on page 6689 changes both; when off, changing one setting does not affect the other.
Use the Default button to return to the initial setting.
Background Intensity Sets the background intensity in the sample slots. The range is from 0 (black) to 1 (white). Default=0.2.
Use the Default button to return to the initial setting.
Render Sample Size Sets the scale of the sample sphere to any size, making it consistent with the object or objects in the scene that have the texture on them. This setting affects how 2D and 3D maps are displayed providing that the sample spheres are set to display real-world scale.
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NOTE The size is scaled to use the current units.
This is a global option that affects all the sample slots. Default=100.0 (Imperial units) and 2.54m (Metric units).
Use the Default button to return to the initial setting.
Default Texture Size Controls the initial size (both height and width) of a newly created real-world texture. You see the result of changing this option only when you create a new texture in a material; the change appears in the
Coordinates rollout on page 5782. Default=48.0 (Imperial units) and 1.219m
(Metric units).
NOTE This setting applies to real-world textures only. For the default size to be applied to newly created textures, the Preferences dialog > General panel > Use Real-World Texture Coordinates check box must be on.
Use the Default button to return to the initial setting.
DirectX Shader group
These options affect the viewport behavior of the DirectX 9 Shader material on page 5758.
Force Software Rendering When on, forces DirectX 9 Shader materials to use the selected software render style for viewports. When off, the FX file specified in the DirectX 9 Shader is used unless the material's local Force Software Rendering toggle is on. Default=off.
Shade Selected When Force Software Rendering is on, selected objects, and only selected objects, are shaded by the DirectX 9 Shader material. This toggle is unavailable unless Force Software Rendering is on. Default=off.
Custom Sample Object group
Controls in this group let you specify a custom sample object on page 5314 to use in the sample slots on page 5304.
File Name Selects the MAX scene file.
The scene should contain a single unlinked object that fits in an imaginary cube 100 units on a side. The object must be either a primitive with a Generate Mapping Coords. check box, or have a UVW Map modifier on page 1931 applied to it. The scene can contain a camera and lights.
Load Camera and/or Lights Turn on to have sample slots use the camera and lights in the scene, instead of the default sample slot lighting.
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Slots group
These options let you choose how many sample slots to display at a time.
The Material Editor always has 24 sample slots available. You can choose to display fewer sample slots at a larger size. When you do, scroll bars let you move around among the sample slots.
3 X 2 Specifies a 3 x 2 array of sample slots. (The default: 6 windows.)
5 X 3 Specifies a 5 X 3 array of sample slots. (15 windows.)
6 X 4 Specifies a 6 X 4 array of sample slots. (24 windows.)
Apply Applies the current settings, except for changes to the Slots group,
without leaving the Material Editor Options dialog. This is useful when you adjust lighting values for the sample slots.
OK Closes the dialog and applies any changes you made.
Cancel Closes the dialog and cancels any changes you made, including changes
you applied with the Apply button.
Select By Material
Material Editor vertical toolbar > Select By Material button
Material Editor > Material menu > Select by Material
Material Editor > Utilities menu > Select Objects by Material
Select By Material allows you to select objects based on the active material in the Material Editor. This command is unavailable unless the active sample slot contains a material used in the scene.
Choosing this command opens the Select Objects dialog, which works like
Select From Scene on page 228. All objects that have the selected material
applied to them are highlighted in the list.
NOTE Hidden objects don't appear in this list, even if the material is applied to them. However, in the Material/Map Browser on page 5290, you can choose Browse From: Scene, turn on By Object, and then browse from the scene. This lists all objects in the scene, hidden and unhidden, along with their assigned materials.
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Procedures
To select objects that have the same material applied:
1 Click a sample slot that contains a material in the scene.
White corner brackets indicate materials that are in the scene.
2 Click Select By Material on page 5340 in the Material Editor.
This button is unavailable unless the active sample slot contains a material in the scene.
The Select Objects dialog on page 228 opens. The names of objects with the active material applied are highlighted.
3 Click Select to select objects with the active material applied.
You can also change the selection by choosing other objects. If you change the selection, you must then click Assign Material To Selection on page 5344 to apply the active material to newly selected objects.
Get Material
Material Editor > Get Material
Material Editor menu > Material menu > Get Material
Get Material displays the Material/Map Browser on page 5290 to allow you to choose a material on page 8041 or map on page 8036.
Procedures
To get a material from a scene:
1 Click a sample slot to make it active.
Be careful not to click the sample slot of a material you want to use later.
2 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Get Material on page 5341.
A modeless Material/Map Browser on page 5290 is displayed.
3 In the Browse From group box at the upper left, make sure that either
Selected or Scene is chosen.
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The Selected option lists only materials in the current selection. If no objects are selected, the list of materials is blank.
The Scene option lists all the materials currently in the scene.
4 In the list of materials, double-click the name of the material you want
to get.
You can also drag the material name to the sample slot.
The material you chose replaces the previous material in the active sample slot.
WARNING When you get a material from a scene, initially it is a hot on page 8006 material.
To get a material from a library:
1 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Get Material on page 5341.
A modeless Material/Map Browser on page 5290 is displayed.
2 In the Browse From group box at the upper left, make sure that Material
Library is chosen.
If you have opened a library, the list of materials shows the contents of the library.
If you haven't opened a library, click Open in the file area of the Browser. A file dialog is displayed. Choose a library. After you open the library, the list of materials updates to show the library contents.
NOTE Open also lets you get materials from a 3ds Max scene (a .max file).
3 In the list of materials, double-click the name of the material you want
to get.
You can also drag the name of the material to the sample slot.
The material you chose replaces the previous material in the active sample slot.
To create a standalone map tree:
1 Activate a sample slot.
2 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Get Material.
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3 In the Material/Map Browser on page 5290, make sure Browse From is set
to New.
4 In the Show group box, turn off Materials so only maps are displayed in
the list.
5 Double-click the name of the map type (not a material type) you want
to use, or drag the map to a sample slot.
The sample slot now contains a standalone map not associated with material parameters.
6 Use the Material Editor to modify the map as you would any other map.
By default, the sample slots distinguish maps from materials by displaying maps as 2D surfaces without lighting or shading.
To remove a material from an object:
1 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Get Material.
The Material/Map Browser appears.
2 Drag the entry NONE from the top of the list in the Browser to the object.
The object now has no material applied to it.
Put Material to Scene
Material Editor > Put Material to Scene
Material Editor menu > Material menu > Put to Scene
Put Material To Scene updates a material in the scene after you edit the material. Put Material To Scene is available only when:
■ The material in the active sample slot has the same name as a material in
a scene.
■ The material in the active sample slot is not hot.
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In other words, this command is intended to fit into the overall sequence of handling materials:
■ You create a hot material either by applying it to objects in the scene or
by getting it from the scene.
■ You make a copy of the material.
■ You make changes to the copy of the material.
■ You update the scene by putting the changed material back into the scene.
Notes
■ If you apply a mapped material to a parametric object whose Generate
Mapping Coords option is off, the software automatically turns on mapping coordinates at render time. In addition, if you apply a mapped material with Show Map in Viewport active to an object, that object's Generate Mapping Coords option is turned on if necessary.
■ The Show Map In Viewport flag is now saved with individual materials,
so you can drag mapped materials from the modeless Browser onto objects in your scene, and the mapping appears in the viewports.
Procedures
To put a material back into a scene:
■ On the Material Editor toolbar, click Put Material To Scene.
The material in the active sample slot is now a hot material on page 8006.
Assign Material to Selection
Material Editor > Assign Material to Selection
Material Editor menu > Material menu > Assign to Selection
Assign Material to Selection applies the material in the active sample slot to the currently selected object or objects in the scene. At the same time, the sample slot becomes hot on page 8006.
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If you apply a mapped material to a parametric object whose Generate Mapping Coords option is off, the software automatically turns on mapping coordinates at render time. In addition, if you apply a mapped material with Show Map
In Viewport on page 5350 active to a parametric object, that object's Generate
Mapping Coords option is turned on if necessary.
The Show Map In Viewport flag is saved with individual materials, so when you drag mapped materials from the modeless Browser on page 5290 onto objects in your scene, the mapping appears in the viewports.
The Undo command works for material assignment.
Procedures
To apply a material to objects in a scene:
1 Select the sample slot that contains the material you want to apply.
2 Select the objects you want to apply the material to.
3 Do either of the following:
■ Drag from the sample slot to the objects. If more than one object is
selected, you are asked whether you want to apply to the single object or to the whole selection.
■ Click Assign Material To Selection on page 5344 on the Material
Editor toolbar.
WARNING When you apply a material to an object or selection, that material becomes a hot material on page 8006. When you change the material's properties, the scene immediately updates to reflect those changes. Any object with that material will change its appearance, not just the objects in the current selection. When a material is hot, its sample slot is displayed with white corner brackets.
To make a material no longer hot so it doesn't change the current scene,
click Make Material Copy on page 5346.
Reset Map/Mtl to Default Settings
Material Editor > Reset Map/Mtl to Default Settings
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Reset Map/Mtl to Default Settings resets the values for the map or material in the active sample slot.
The material colors are removed and set to shades of gray. Glossiness, opacity, and so on are reset to their default values. Maps assigned to the material are removed.
If you are at a map level, this button resets the map to default values.
Reset changes the name on page 5360 only when this field names a material used in the scene.
Make Material Copy
Material Editor > Make Material Copy
Material Editor menu > Material menu > Make Material Copy
Make Material Copy "cools" on page 7943 the current hot on page 8006 sample slot by copying the material to itself.
The sample slot is no longer hot, but the material retains its properties and name. You can adjust the material without affecting it in the scene. Once you've got what you want, you can click Put Material to Scene on page 5343 to update the material in the scene and change the sample slot to hot again.
Make Unique (Material Editor)
Material Editor > Make Unique
Make Unique makes a map instance on page 8014 into a unique copy. It also makes an instanced sub-material into a unique, standalone sub-material. It gives the sub-material a new material name. A sub-material is a material within a Multi/Sub-Object material on page 5720.
Using Make Unique prevents changes to the top-level material instance from affecting the sub-material instance within the Multi/Sub-Object material.
You can also use Make Unique at the map level, when a map is instanced to different components of the same material.
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NOTE If you drag an instanced map to a Material Editor sample slot, the Make Unique button will not be available, because it is not clear from the context what it would be unique relative to. Instead, you need to bring one of the parent maps or materials into the Material Editor, browse down into the map, and then make the map unique relative to that parent.
Procedures
Example: Create an instanced sub-material:
1 Create a box and a sphere.
2 Open the Material Editor.
3 Choose a sample slot, click the Material Type button, choose
Multi/Sub-Object in the Material/Map Browser, and then click OK.
4 Select the box, and then apply the new Multi/Sub-Object
material to it.
5 Drag one of the Sub-Material buttons from the Material Editor to the
sphere.
6 Choose a different sample slot, and use the Pick Material From Object
button to get the sub-material applied to the sphere.
At this point, the material applied to the sphere and the sub-material are instances of each other.
7 Go to the parameters for the instanced sub-material by clicking its
Sub-Material button.
8 The Make Unique button is now available. Click it to make the
sub-material unique again, and assign it a new material name.
Make Unique is not available for the top-level instance of the sub-material.
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Put to Library
Material Editor > Put to Library
Material Editor menu > Material menu > Put to Library
Put to Library adds the selected material to the current library.
A Put to Library dialog on page 5372 is displayed, which lets you enter a name for the material that’s different from the one you used in the Material Editor.
The material becomes visible in the material library display in the Material/Map
Browser on page 5290. The material is saved to the library file on disk. (You can
also save a library by using the Save button in the Material/Map Browser.)
Procedures
To save a material in a library:
1 Click to select the sample slot that has the material you want to save.
2 On the Material Editor toolbar, click Put To Library on page 5348.
3 A Put To Library dialog on page 5372 is displayed.
4 Either change the material name or leave it as is, and then click OK.
The material is saved in the currently open library. If no library is open, a new library is created. You can save the new library as a file using the
Material/Map Browser on page 5290 file controls.
Material ID Channel
Material Editor > Material ID Channel
The buttons on the Material ID Channel flyout tag a material as a target for a Video Post on page 6773 effect or a rendering effect on page 6583, or for storing with a rendered image saved in RLA on page 7364 or RPF on page 7366 file format (so that the channel value can be used in a post-processing application). The material ID value is the counterpart of a G-buffer value on page 7991 for objects.
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Zero (0), the default, indicates that no material ID channel is assigned.
A value from 1 to 15 means to apply a Video Post or rendering effect that uses this channel ID to this material.
For example, you might want a material to glow wherever it appears in the scene. The material is in the Material Editor and the glow comes from a rendering effect. First, you add a Glow rendering effect on page 6599 and set it up so that it operates on ID 1. Use Material ID Channel to give the material an ID number of 1, then apply the material to objects in the scene in the usual way.
To save the channel data with the rendering, use the RLA or RPF format.
WARNING The mental ray renderer on page 6230 does not recognize Z-depth with G-buffers. G-buffer data is saved on a single layer. Also, the mental ray renderer does not support the following effects:
■ Glow lens effect on page 6599 (rendering effect)
■ Ring lens effect on page 6606 (rendering effect)
■ Lens effects Focus filter on page 6871 (Video Post)
Procedures
To assign a material ID channel to a material:
■ Choose a channel number from the Material ID Channel flyout on
page 5350.
NOTE Giving a material a nonzero ID channel number tells the renderer to generate a material ID channel containing that value. This information is stored in images only if you save the rendered scene in RLA or RPF format. However, the ID channel data is available to rendering effects at render time.
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Material ID Channel Flyout
Material Editor > Tool buttons > Material ID Channel flyout
The Material ID Channel on page 5348 flyout in the Material Editor on page 5284 lets you assign a material ID to the material. The ID value can associate a Video
Post effect on page 6773 or rendering effect on page 6583 to objects assigned this
material. The channel ID can also be saved if you render to a file in the RLA on page 7364 or RPF on page 7366 format. Saving the material ID in an image file lets you use the channel in post-processing applications, such as Autodesk Combustion.
Zero (0), the default, indicates that no material ID channel is assigned.
A value from 1 to 15 says that an effect that uses this material ID will be applied to this material.
Show Standard/Hardware Map in Viewport
Material Editor > Show Standard/Hardware Map in Viewport
Material Editor menu > Material menu > Show Materials in Viewport As on page 173
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Left: Map shown on sample cube
Right: Map shown in a viewport
This control lets you switch between using software and hardware (DirectX
9.0c and above) for the viewport display, and also toggles the display of mapped materials on the surfaces of objects in shaded viewports with the
interactive renderer on page 8164. The control is actually a flyout on page 7985
with four possible states:
■ Show Standard Map in Viewport [off]: Uses the legacy software
display and disables viewport display of all maps for the active material.
■ Show Standard Map in Viewport [on]: Uses the legacy software
display and enables viewport display of all maps for the active material.
■ Show Hardware Map in Viewport [off]: Uses the hardware display
and disables viewport display of all maps for the active material.
■ Show Hardware Map in Viewport [on]: Uses the hardware display
and enables viewport display of all maps for the active material.
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Comparison of Standard and Hardware Displays
The ability to render materials in the viewports using a hardware-based display mode lets you view and adjust certain parameters interactively without having to generate a final render, saving time when editing materials. The hardware display does not fully support all material parameters, however. When considering which display mode to use for a material, take these points into consideration:
Hardware DisplaySoftware Display
Supports all materials
Supports Diffuse maps only
Faster, no special hardware requirements
Renders faceted display modes correctly
Supports only Standard and Arch & Design materials
Supports Diffuse, Specular, and Bump maps, as well as Anisotropy and BRDF set­tings
Reflects the sky shader on page 5181No reflection
Calculates specularity on per-pixel basisCalculates specularity on per-face basis
Slower but more accurate, requires a Dir­ectX9.0c-compliant video card
Renders faceted display modes as smoothed
The following image, taken from the 3ds Max viewport, shows two spheres to which are applied two copies of an Arch & Design material with identical settings, including texture-mapped diffuse color and bump mapping, a high reflectivity level, and a Checker map applied to the Anisotropy channel. The scene also includes a Daylight system with mr Sun and Sky, with the Environment Map set to mr Physical Sky. The only difference is that the material on the left-hand sphere is set to Show Standard Map in Viewport, while the material on the right-hand sphere is set to Show Hardware Map in Viewport. The latter shows the bump mapping, reflection of the sky, and the checkered anisotropy in the specular highlight. The spheres render identically, and look similar to the right-hand sphere.
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Usage Notes
Please observe the following important aspects of using these controls:
■ The hardware display applies only to the Standard on page 5395 and Arch
& Design on page 5544 materials; when it’s active, 3ds Max still uses the
software display to render all other materials.
■ Choosing the alternate flyout button does not toggle its state. For example,
if Show Standard Map in Viewport is off for the active material, choosing Show Hardware Map in Viewport simply switches the material to hardware display mode; it does not turn on the maps. You must toggle the control explicitly.
■ This control is also available at the map level, where it functions only as
a toggle for the option set at the material level, and applies only to the active map. So, for example, with the hardware display you could enable viewport display of the bump map while disabling display the diffuse map, although both would appear in the final rendered image. Changing the setting at the material level overrides any map-level settings.
NOTE If the toggle is unavailable at a map level, it means viewport display of the map is unsupported. One possible reason is that the map is nested too deep in the material tree.
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■ Hardware viewport rendering requires a DirectX9.0c-compliant video card.
Also, hardware viewport rendering is supported only by the Direct3D
display driver on page 7802.
■ These options do not apply to XRef materials on page 5765, including
materials from XRef objects on page 6936 and XRef scenes on page 6959
■ Displaying mapped materials in a viewport can slow performance. If you
don't need to view the map, turn off its viewport display.
■ You can toggle Show Standard/Hardware Map In Viewport for all materials
by choosing Views menu > Show Materials in Viewport As on page 173.
■ The state of this button is saved with the material in the library. When
you apply a mapped material while Show Map In Viewport is active, the object's Generate Mapping Coords. check box is turned on. This means that you can drag mapped materials from the Material Library in the Browser over objects in your scene, and have the mapped material appear in the viewports.
■ In the Material/Map Browser on page 5290 and Material/Map Navigator on
page 5357, icons of materials and maps for which Show Map in Viewport is on are red, as shown in the following example:
Requirements
For mapped materials to display in the viewport, the following conditions must be met:
■ Mapping coordinates on page 8034 must be applied to the object. This is
already the case with most primitive objects, which by default have Generate Mapping Coords on at creation. If an object doesn't have mapping coordinates, you can turn this on, or apply a mapped material to the object
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(if it has a Generate Mapping Coords check box), or apply a UVW Map
modifier on page 1931 or an Unwrap UVW modifier on page 1841.
■ A mapped material must be applied to the object.
■ Show Map In Viewport must be on, either at the level of the material that
contains the map on page 8036, or at the top level of the material.
NOTE With the software display driver on page 7794, viewports don't accurately display a map with transparency that has UV tiling or mirroring. Also, this driver cannot display a map on a faceted material.
3D Maps in Viewports
Show Map In Viewport works for 3D procedural maps as well as 2D maps.
3D map display in viewports is not necessarily accurate. To improve the 3D preview, you can use the Material Editor Options dialog on page 5335 to set the 3D Map Sample Scale to equal a main dimension of the object you are applying the map to. For example, if you want to use the planet map on a sphere with a radius of 20, change the map scale from 100 (the default) to 20.
Particle Age and Particle MBlur maps do not preview in viewports.
Multiple Maps in Viewports
Viewports can display multiple maps. For multiple map display, the display driver must be OpenGL on page 7796 or Direct3D on page 7802. The software
display driver on page 7794 does not support multiple map display.
The composite map on page 5918 and mix map on page 5926 support multiple map display.
In addition, turning on Show Map In Viewport at the top level of a standard
material on page 5395 lets you view maps on both the diffuse and opacity
components (though not on other mapped components).
Procedures
To view maps interactively:
1 Select an object.
2 In the object's creation parameters, make sure that Generate Mapping
Coords. is on. (If this option isn't enabled, the object can't be mapped.)
Material Editor Tools | 5355
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