8

1404 Chapter 16: Material Editor, Materials, and Maps
the fly. See Drag and Drop Sub-Object Material
Assignment (page 2–1268)
.
Yo u c a n a l s o c r e a t e a n e w M u l t i / S u b - O b j e c t
material by dragging to faces selected with the
Edit
Mesh modifier (page 1–613)
.
Sub-material IDs do not depend on the order of
the list, and you can enter new ID values.
The Make Unique button (page 2–1286) in
the Material E ditor lets you m ake an instanced
sub-material into a unique copy.
At the multi/sub-object material level, the sample
slot’s sample object shows a patchwork of the
sub-materials. When you edit a sub-material, the
sample slot display depends on the setting of the
Simple Multi Display Below Top Level toggle in the
Material Editor Opt ions dialog (page 2–1280) .
Impr ovement s to M ul ti/Sub-Object
Materials
There a re some improvements to Multi/Sub-Object
Materials in 3ds Max with regards to mesh editing
and managing sub-materials.
• When working a t sub-object levels of Editable
Meshes, Polys, Patches and Splines, or w ith
objectsthathaveEditMesh,SplineorPatch
modifiers applied to them, you now have the
ability to browse by sub-material names if the
object has a multi-sub-object material applied
to it.
• Sub-materials that are not assig ned to an object,
orsurfaceofanobject,canbe’cleaned’from
the Multi-Sub-Object material by using the
Clean MultiMaterial utility (page 2–1552) .
• Duplicate maps, assigned to materials, can be
changed to instances by using the
Instance
Duplicate Maps utility (page 2–1555)
.
Procedures
To create a multi/s ub-object material:
1.
Activate a sample slot in the Material Editor.
2. Click the Type button.
3. In the Material/Map Browser (page 2–1256) ,
choose Multi/Sub-Object and then click OK.
A
Replace Map dialog (page 2–1300) is
displayed. This dialog asks whether you want
to discard the original material in the slot, or
retain it as a sub-material.
The controls for a Multi/Sub-Object material
are essentially a list of the sub-materials it
contains.
To assign a sub-material:
• On the Multi/Sub-Object Basic Parameters
rollout, click a sub-material button.
The parameters for the sub-material appear. By
default, a sub-material is a Standard material
with Blinn shading.
To mak e one of the sub-materials a solid color:
• On the Multi/Sub-Object Basic Parameters
rollout, click the color swatch next to the
sub-material button.
In the
Color S elector (page 1–157) ,choosea
color.
The color swatches for sub-materials are
shortcuts. They assig n t he color you choose to
the sub-material’s Diffuse component.
To assign one of the sub-materials to a sub-object
selection:
1.
Select the object, and assign a multi/sub-object
material to it.
2. On the Modif y panel (page 3–801) ,
apply
Mesh Select (page 1–710) to the object.