Page 561 - Kitab3DsMax

Chapter 18: Creating Compound Materials and Using Material Modifiers

Shell
The Shell Material consists of an original material and a baked material. For each of these materials, you can
specify which appear in the viewport and which are rendered.
Cross-Ref
More on baked materials is found in Chapter 33, “Creating Baked Textures and Normal Maps.” n

Shellac
The Shellac material is added on top of the Base material. The Shellac Basic Parameters rollout includes only
two buttons for each material, along with a Color Blend value. The Blend value has no upper limit.

Top/Bottom
The Top/Bottom material assigns different materials to the top and bottom of an object. The Top and
Bottom areas are determined by the direction in which the face normals point. These normals can be
according to the World or Local Coordinate System. You also can blend the two materials.
The Top/Bottom Basic Parameters rollout includes two buttons for loading the Top and Bottom materials.
You can use the Swap button to switch the two materials. Using World coordinates enables you to rotate
the object without changing the material positions. Local coordinates tie the material to the object.
The Blend value can range from 0 to 100, with 0 being a hard edge and 100 being a smooth transition. The
Position value sets the location where the two materials meet. A value of 0 represents the bottom of the
object and displays only the top material. A value of 100 represents the top of the object, and only the
Bottom material is displayed.

Tutorial: Surfing the waves
There’s nothing like hitting the surf early in the morning, unless you consider hitting the virtual surf early
in the morning. As an example of a compound material, you apply the Top/Bottom material to a surfboard.

To apply a Top/Bottom compound material to a surfboard, follow these steps:
1. Open the Surfboard.max file from the Chap 18 directory on the DVD.
This file contains a surfboard model and an infinite plane to represent the ocean.
2. Apply the Ocean Surface material, which is already created in the Material Editor, to the plane
object by dragging the material node’s output socket from the Material Editor to the Plane object.
3. In the Material Editor, select and double-click the Top/Bottom material to create a new material
node.
4. Select the new material node and name it Surfboard. Then click the Top Material node, name the
material Surfboard Top, and change the Diffuse color to White. In the material drop-down list,
select Surfboard and then click the Bottom Material node. Give this material the name Surfboard
Bottom, and change the Diffuse color to Black.
5. Then drag this material node’s output socket to the surfboard object.

Figure 18.5 shows the resulting image.

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