Getting Started with General and Scanline Materials in 3ds Max 2017

Unit MT1-Material Editors

A material editor is a dialog that allows you to create, and edit materials as well as to assign them to the objects in the scene. A material in 3ds Max defines how light is reflected and transmitted by the objects in a scene.

In the unit, I will describe the following:

• Compact Material Editor

• Slate Material Editor

3ds Max offers two material editors, Compact Material Editor and Slate Material Editor. These editors offer a variety of the functions and features that allow you to design realistic looking surfaces in 3ds Max. To open an editor, choose Compact compactme.png or Slate slateme.png option from the Material Editor flyout on the Main toolbar. You can also open an editor by choosing Compact Material Editor or Slate Material Editor from the Rendering menu | Material Editor sub-menu | Compact Material Editor/Slate Material Editor. If you are using the enhanced menu system, these options are in the Material menu | Create/Edit Materials sub-menu.

Compact Material Editor

This was the only material editor available prior to the 2011 release of 3ds Max. It is comparatively a small dialog [see Figure F1] than the Slate Material Editor and allows you to quickly preview the material. If you are assigning materials that have already been designed, this material editor is the preferred choice.

Note: Additional Features

The Compact Material Editor has some options such as Video Color Check and Custom Sample Objects that are not available in the Slate Material Editor.

The Compact Material Editor's interface consists of menu bar at the top [see Figure F1], sample slots below the menu bar, and toolbars at the bottom and right of the sample slots. Now onward, I will refer to these toolbars as horizontal and vertical toolbars, respectively. The interface also contains many rollouts. The content on these rollouts depends on the active material slot and the type of material it hosts.

Note: Switching Editors

If you want to switch to Slate Material Editor, choose Slate Material Editor from the editor's Modes menu.

Sample Slots

The sample slots allow you to preview material and maps. By default, six sample slots appear in the editor. You can increase the number of slots by choosing Cycle 3x2, 5x3, 6x4 Sample Slots from the editor's Options menu. This option cycles through the 3x2, 5x3, and 6x4 slots arrangement. To make a sample slot active, click on the sample slot. The active sample slot appears with a white border around it.

Caution: Maximum number of sample slots

The Compact Material Editor allows you to edit up to 24 material at a time. However, the scene might contain an unlimited numbers of materials. When you finish a material and apply it to the objects in the scene. You can use the slot occupied by that material to design the next material.

By default, material appears on a sphere geometry in a sample slot. You can change the sphere to cylinder or cube by choosing the desired option from the Sample Type flyout. This flyout is the first entry in the editor's vertical toolbar. To view a magnified version of the sample slot in a floating window, double-click on it. You can resize the window to change the magnification level of the sample slot.

Hot and Cool Materials

A sample slot is considered to be hot if it is assigned to one or more surfaces in the scene. When you use the editor to adjust properties of a hot material the changes are reflected in the viewport at the same time. The corners of a sample slot indicates whether the material is hot or not. Here are the possibilities:

No triangle: The material is not used in the scene.

Outlined white triangle: The material is hot and the changes you make to it will change the material displayed in the scene.

Solid white triangle: The material is not only hot but it is also applied to the currently selected object in the scene.

Notice the three sample slots in Figure F2 that shows three possibilities: a hot material applied to the currently selected, a hot material is applied to the scene but not on the currently selected object, and a cool material which is active but not assigned to scene, respectively. If you want to make a hot material cool, click Make Material Copy getmaterial.png from the horizontal toolbar. You can have the same material with the same name in multiple slots but only one slot can be hot. However, you can have more than one hot sample slot as long as each sample slot has a different material.

Note: Dragging a