User manual

Maxwell Render 2.5 User Manual

Chapter 10. Maxwell Materials | 55

a. Material Components

Maxwell Render’s materials are made up of different “components” which are organized

into folders. A folder can hold one BSDF (Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function)

component and Coating, Emitter and Displacement components.

Each folder in the material editor represents a Layer, which are stacked one on top of the

other, similar to layers in a 2D image editing application. Please see the chapter about the

Stacked Layers system for more information.

F.01 Material components

b. Material Preview

F.01 Material preview

This window allows you to get a quick preview of the material while you are editing it.

When you are changing your material parameters, double-click in the preview sample

image to refresh the preview with the new parameters, or click on the Refresh Preview

button (green double-arrow icon), and Maxwell Render will compute a preview of your

material. During the preview, the green icon will be replaced by a red square icon, to

indicate that it is calculating your preview.

c. BSDF Properties

Parameters to control the main optical properties for each material component (BSDF,

coatings, etc).

F.01 BSDF properties

d. Surface Properties

F.01 Surface properties

Parameters to control the surface properties of a material.

The material components section also contains various buttons to control the aspect of the

material and material editor.