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1396 Chapter 16: Material Editor, Materials, and Maps
Work flow Outline
In general, when you create a new material and
apply it to an object, you follow these steps:
1. Make a sample slot (page 2–1396) active, and
enteranameforthematerialyouareaboutto
design.
2. Choose the material t ype (page 2–1397).
Tip: 3ds Max provides two renderers, the default
scanline rendere r (page 3–38) and the mental
ray renderer (page 3–78). Each has its own
capabilities. In general, for each scene, you will
decide which renderer you wan t to use. It is a
good idea to design materials with a part icular
renderer in mind. The mental ray Connection
rollout (page 2–1461) lets you add features
unique to the mental ray renderer to basic
3ds Max materials.
3. For a Standard or Raytrace material, choose the
shading type (page 2–1398).
4. Enter settings for the various material
components (page 2–1399):diffusecolor,
glossiness, opacity, and so on.
Note: Lights and Shading (page 2–1399)
describes how lights affect the appearance of
amaterial.Choosing Colors for Realism (page
2–1400) gives guidelines on getting good results
from unmapped materials.
5. Assign maps (page 2–1403) to the components
you want to map, and adjust their parameters.
6. Apply (page 2–1405) the material to the objec t.
7. If necessary, adjust t he UV mapping coordinates
(page 2–1405) in order to orient maps with
objects correctly.
8. Save (page 2–1406) the material.
Sample Slots and Material Name
The sample slots (page 2–1420) display previews of
materials. They are the most prominent feature
of the Material Editor interface. Below and to the
rig ht of the sample slots are var ious tool buttons
(page 2–1427) for the Material Editor. Below the
toolbuttonsisanamefieldthatshowsthename
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. T he
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.
Impor tant: 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 a different
material from the s cene (or create a new one) and then
edit it.
Toincreasethenumberofsampleslotsvisible
at once, right-click a slot and then choose 5 X 3