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Type Button (Materials and Maps) 1449
the names of maps and sub-materials assigned at
lower levels of the map or material hierarchy.
Thenameofthematerialisnotafilename:itcan
contain spaces, numbers, and special characters.
It can be of any length.
Note: In releases prior to 3ds Max 4, material names
were limited to 16 characters. As of 3ds Max 4,you
can assig n material names of arbit rary length.
This field also func t ions as a drop-down list. At
the top level, it shows only the material or map
name. At lower levels of the hierarchy, drop t he
list down to see the names of ancestors to the map
or material. The top level is at the top of the list,
the current level is at the bottom, and intermediate
levels appear between them.
Procedure
To gi ve a mater ia l a dif fer ent na me:
• Edit the name field that appears below the
Material Editor toolbar.
The name of the active ma terial appears in the
title bar of the Material Editor dialog.
Ty pe Button (Materials and Maps)
Material Editor > Type button
Material Editor menu > Material menu > Change
Material/Map Type
Click the Type button to display the Material/Map
Browser (page 2–1412) and choose which material
type or map type to use.
When changing a material’s type, the original
material type is replaced unless you choose a
compound material (page 3–922),inwhichcasea
Replace Material dialog (page 2–1456) is displayed.
The Replace Material dialog lets you choose
between discarding the original material or using
it as a sub-material within the new material.
For a standalone map (a map at the top level),
clickingtheTypebuttonletsyouchangethemap
type instead of the material type. However, you
can’t use this button to m a ke a map standalone.
To make a standalone map, you have to click Get
Material (page 2–1439) and choose a map from
the Browser it displays.
When you change the type of a standalone map,
a Replace Map dialog (page 2–1456) is displayed.
The Replace Map dialog lets you choose b etween
discarding the original map or using it as a
sub-map within the new map.
Animating Materials
This topic provides some suggestions about how
to animate materials.
Animating B asic Materials
In general, you animate a basic material by
changing its parameters in different keyf r ames
while Auto Key is act ive. 3ds Max interpolates
values between keyframes, as it does when you
animate transforms and modifiers.
Be aware that t he tracks for a material assigned
to an object are distinct f rom t he material tracks
that belong to the Material Editor: animating a
mate rial in the Material Editor affects the scene
only if the material is hot (page 3–953).
Animating Mapped Materials
As with basic materials, you can create animation
keys for map parameters.
The noise parameters and the Noise map (page
2–1674) itself provide the Phase parameter
specifically for animating the noise function.
Yo u c a n a l s o p r o d u c e a n a n i m a t e d m a t e r i a l b y
applying an animated bitmap as a map. This