Page 492 - Kitab3DsMax

Part IV: Materials, Cameras, and Lighting Basics

Tip
You also can pan the view by dragging with the middle mouse button and zoom by scrubbing the mouse scroll
wheel, just like you can in the viewports. n
In addition to the navigation tools in the lower-right corner of the Material Editor, the View menu includes
several options for navigating the Material Node View panel including options to Show/Hide the Grid (G),
show scrollbars, and options to lay out all nodes (L).
If you right-click the Node View tab, you can access a menu to rename or delete the current view. You can
also create a new view. This new view appears as another tab at the top of the Material Editor. The new
view is navigated independently of the other views and can hold a completely different set of materials.
With several views created, you can drag the tabs to reorder the panels as desired.

Selecting and applying materials
A material node block can be selected by simply clicking its title. When selected, the title bar turns dark
blue in both the Material Node View and Navigator panels. Selected materials are applied to the object
selected in the viewport using the Assign Material to Selection button in the Material Editor toolbar, using
the Material ➪ Assign Material to Selection (A) menu or by using the right-click pop-up menu. You can also
apply a material to a scene object by dragging on the material node’s output socket and dropping the mate-
rial on a viewport object whether it is selected or not.
Holding down the Ctrl key while clicking material node blocks lets you select multiple nodes at once.
Pressing the Delete key deletes the selected material node.
The Material Node View panel is a temporary placeholder for materials and maps. An actual scene can have
hundreds of materials. By loading a material into a material node, you can change its parameters, apply it to
other objects, or save it to a library for use in other scenes. When a file is saved, all materials in the Material
Editor are saved with the file.

Changing the material preview
Next to the material name is a preview of the material. If you double-click the preview, the preview is
enlarged to show more detail. You can change the Sample Type object displayed in the material block to be
a sphere, cylinder, or box using the Preview Object Type menu in the right-click pop-up menu.
The right-click pop-up menu also includes options to show the background in the preview, to show a back-
light, and to change the preview tiling for applied maps. The Open Preview Window option opens the
material preview in a separate window, as shown in Figure 15.3. Within this floating window, you can
resize the preview to be larger, revealing more details. The Show End Result button shows the material with
all materials and maps applied.

Tip
The Material Preview panel also can be docked to the Material Editor. n
When you assign a material to an object in the scene, the material becomes “hot.” A Hot material is automat-
ically updated in the scene when the material parameters change. Hot materials have white corner brackets
displayed around their material preview. You can “cool” a material by making a copy of its material block.
To copy a material block, simply drag it with the Shift key held down. This detaches the material node from
the object in the scene to which it is applied, so that any changes to the material aren’t applied to the object.

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