8
Material Editor 1253
Material Editor
Main toolbar > Material Editor
Rendering menu > Material Editor
Keyboard > M
The Material Editor provides functions to create
and edit
materials (page 3–1065)
and
maps (p age
3–1062)
.
Materials create greater realism in a scene.
A material describes how an object reflects
or transmits light. Material properties work
hand-in-hand with light properties; shading or
rendering comb ine the two, simulating how the
object would look in a real-world setting.
Yo u a p p l y m a t e r i a l s t o i n d i v i d u a l o b j e c t s o r
selectionsets;asinglescenecancontainmany
different materials.
Note: Creating a new material clears the
Undo/Redo lists.
Pr ocedur es
To view the Material Editor:
• Click the Material Editor button on the
main toolbar.
The Material Editor dialog has
sample slots
(page 2–1264)
for viewing p
reviews of
materials. When you first view the Material
Editor, the material prev iews have a uniform
default color.
To give a mater ia l a dif fer ent na me:
• Edit the name field that appears below t he
Material Editor toolbar.
The name of the active material appears in the
title bar of the Mat
erial Editor dialog. The name
of the material is not a file name: it can contain
spaces, numbers, and special characters.
The name field displays only 16 characters, but
a material name can be longer than that.
To mak e a copy of a preview material:
• On the Material Editor toolbar, click
Make
Material Copy (page 2–1286)
.
To get a material from a scene:
If a material that you want to change has been
saved in the scene, but not in th e Material E ditor,
you can load the material by getting it from the
scene.
1. Click a sample slot to ma ke it act ive.
Be careful not to click the sample slot of a
material you want to use later.
2. On the Material Editor toolbar, click
Get
Material (page 2–1283)
.
A modeless
Material/Map Browser (page
2–1256)
is displayed.
3. In the Browse From group box at the upper
left,makesurethateitherSelectedorSceneis
chosen.
The Selected o ption lists only materials in the
current selection. If no objects are selected , the
listofmaterialsisblank.
TheSceneoptionlistsallthematerialscurrently
in the scene.
4. In the list of materials, double-click the name of
the material you want.
You can also drag the material name to the
sample slot.
The material y ou chose replaces the previous
materialintheactivesampleslot.
Wa rn in g: When you get a material from a scene, it is
initially a
hot material (page 3–1047)
.