User manual

© Next Limit Technologies 2010
Maxwell Render 2.5 User Manual
Chapter 10. Maxwell Materials | 82
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10.08 Useful tools for working with materials
10.08.01 The Material Browser
The Material Browser allows you to browse the Maxwell materials available on your
system. It works similar to Windows Explorer, with a folder tree-view on the left side and
the contents of the folder displayed on the right side.
The Material Browser is available from your 3D application using the corresponding plug-
in, or from Studio as an independent panel. The Material Browser shows a small preview
of every MXM le found in the material database.
10.08.02 The Wizards
Maxwell Render comes with an easy step-by-step guide to create various types of common
materials such as shiny wooden oor, plastics, clipmapped materials for leafs, and
subsurface scattering materials. The Wizards will ask you for textures, bumps, reectance
maps and material values such as roughness and color.
You can use the Common Wizard to create ve types of basic materials: Diffuse, Emitter,
Metal, Dielectric, and Plastic. The SSS Converter serves as both a Wizard and a converter
of measured SSS data into values used in the SSS parameters of the Material Editor. You
can simply choose a material from the Presets dropdown list and click OK, or you can tick
the Advanced Settings check box which allows you to alter the pre-set or create an entirely
new SSS material if you have access to measured SSS data.
10.08.03 The MXM Gallery and Maxwell Resources
The Maxwell Render material gallery, called the MXM Gallery, is an online library with over
3.600 free Maxwell materials available for download. It is an online community where
Maxwell Render users share materials for direct use in scenes and projects.
The MXM Gallery is part of the Maxwell Resources website at http://resources.
maxwellrender.com where you can also nd free and downloadable Maxwell skies,
illumination pre-sets and HDRIs.
10.08.04 Direct connection between Maxwell Render and the MXM Gallery
F.01 MXM Gallery button
The Maxwell Render 2 Material Browser has a direct connection with the MXM Gallery.
Open the Web tab (icon above) to search for materials in the online MXM Gallery. Type in
a word to do a search, select the material you need, and drag it over the Material Editor, in
the Materials List Panel or over the desired object to import the material into your scene.
The material will be downloaded to your computer, unzipped and placed either in the
current project folder (the folder where the MXS le is located), or in the folder you have
specied in Preferences> Materials> MXM gallery. In the search results, you can click on
a column to sort the materials by that column, and you can double-click on the material
thumbnail to display a larger version of it. Please make sure you have written your login/
password information in Preferences> Materials> MXM gallery to be able to log in and
download materials.