8

Material Type 1241
Sample Windows or 6 X 4 Sample Windows from
the pop-up menu.
Note: The right-click menu also has an Options
(page 2–1280)
choice. This displays a dialog with
various options for sample display. Exploring
these options can help you learn to preview
materials effectively. However, keep in m ind that
these settings affect the sample display
only .They
change nothing in the 3ds Max scene.
When more sample slots are visible, the images are
smaller, but you can display a larger, floating, and
resizable material sample by double-clicking the
slot you want to see better.
Click a sample slo t to make it active. Now you
can design a new material from scratch, or you
can load a previously stored material by clicking
Get Material (page 2–1283) ,whichdisplaysthe
Material/Map Browser. The Browser is a dialog
that lets you choose materials and maps from a
material library, from the scene, and so on.
Yo u c a n a l s o c o p y a m a t e r i a l f r o m o n e s a m p l e
slot to another. Drag the slot with the material to
another slot. To avoid confusion, rename the copy
in the new sample slot before you b egin to make
changes to it.
If the
\matlibs subdirectory contains a material
library ca lled
medit.mat, thesampleslotsshowthe
first 24 materials in this library file. If the library
contains fewer than 24 materials, the remaining
slotscontainStandardmaterialsofvariouscolors,
as they do if no
medit.mat librar y is found.
Material Type
Every material has a type. The default is Standard
(page 2–1309)
, which is the material type you
will probably use most often. In general, other
material t ypes are for special pur poses. The other
material types are:
•
Advanced Lighting Override (page 2–1410)
Used to fine-tune the effects of a material on
Advanced Lighting (page 3–43) ,including light
tracing (p age 3–43)
and radiosity solutions
(page 3–50)
. Radiosity Override is not required
for calculating advanced lighting, but it can
enhance the result.
•
Blend (page 2–1397)
Mixes two other materials together. C an use a
mask or a simple amount control.
•
Composite (page 2–1399)
Mixes up to 10 materia ls.
•
Double-Sided (page 2–1400)
Contains two materials, one for the front and
one for the back faces of an object.
•
Ink ’n Paint (page 2–1414)
Creates cartoon effects with flat shading and
“inked” borders.
•
Lightscape (page 2–1413)
Supports import (page 3–609) and export (page
3–577)
of data from the Lightscape product.
•
Matte/Shadow (page 2–1393)
Displays the environment but receives shadows.
This is a special-purpose material. The effect is
similar to using a matte in filmmaking.
•
Morpher (page 2–1401)