User manual
© Next Limit Technologies 2010
Maxwell Render 2.5 User Manual
Chapter 10. Maxwell Materials | 58
on, it will shine light on the scene just like a regular emitter. But when the emitter
is turned off, it will reveal the glass bulb material. You can apply only one emitter
component per layer.
• Add Coating: Add a new coating to the selected BSDF. You can only add one coating
component per BSDF.
• Add Displacement: Add a displacement component to the current layer. Please
note that, although you can have multiple displacement components in a multi-layer
material, only one of them will be used for rendering. You can specify which one you
would like to use for rendering by clicking on the Material properties tab. For more
information, see the Stacked Layers system description in Chapter 10.3.
• Copy-Paste-Duplicate-Rename: Select the component of your choice and use
this function to copy, paste, duplicate or rename the component.
• Embed MXM: Import a MXM into the current material. The layers of the new material
are added to the current material.
• Reset Selected: Restore the parameters of a selected layer or component to default.
• Remove Selected: Delete the currently selected layer or component. You can click
on the folder icon to delete all the components in the layer, or click on an individual
component to delete just the selected component.
• Remove All: Remove all the layers or components from the material.
10.02.07 The Color Picker
The Material Editor Color Picker is a simple and fast tool for choosing colors. The small
circle on the outer colored wheel lets the user rotate the triangle inside, choosing the hue.
The second circle allows you to choose value and brightness within the hue selected. You
can also specify the color in HSV, RGB or XYZ coordinates, using the “radio buttons” below
the chromatic graph.
The color chips on the right side can be used to store commonly used colors. Drag & drop
a color from the large color chips at the bottom of the Color Picker to one of the color chips
on the right to store a color.
The two large color chips at the bottom of the color picker allow you to compare the
previously selected color with a new one. The left color chip updates to show the currently
selected color in the colored wheel. The right color chip shows the previous color that was
selected when the Color Picker was opened.
10.02.08 The Texture Picker
Clicking on any texture icon will bring up the texture picker, which allows you to load a
texture.
• Loading textures: To choose a texture, click on the Load button or drag & drop a
texture from any Explorer or desktop window into the main frame. You can drag &
drop multiple textures at once. The textures will become available for selecting in the
dropdown menu.
• Unloading a texture: Select a previously loaded texture from the dropdown menu
and click the Unload button to remove it from the scene. This will free up some
memory.
• Full View: View a texture in full size. You can also use the image control sliders in
the full view window, although the texture will not update in real time. It will update
after you have made a change.
• Refresh: Reload a texture in case you have edited it in an external image editing
application.
• Switch Display Size: Switch the thumbnail texture view to a small or a large preview
for easier viewing of texture changes.
There are also several parameters to control the Projection Properties and Image
Properties.
The application of a texture can be controlled through the Projection Properties:
• Channel: Specify the UV set to be used for this texture. In Maxwell Studio a “UV
set” is a set of UV coordinates for an object. One object can have several UV sets.
If an object has only one UV set applied to it, that UV set will be numbered 0. If an
object has two UV sets applied to it, they will be numbered 0 and 1. For example,
imagine you have an object with a Cubic and a Spherical UV set, and the Cubic UV set
is numbered 0 and the Spherical UV set is numbered 1. You may want to map some
of the textures to the object using the Cubic UV set, and some other textures using
the Spherical UV set. Given the Cubic UV set belonging to the object uses channel
0 (you can check which channel number it uses in the Object parameters panel in
Studio, under the UV Sets section), you should set the channel number to 0 so that
the particular texture will be mapped using the Cubic UV set.
• Method: Tile your texture in X axis, Y axis, both the X and Y axis, or do not use any
tiling at all (no repeat).
• Repeat: Specify the tiling amount (number of repetitions of the texture) in the