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Part VII: Advanced Materials
Figure 30.5 shows a house that uses several of these architectural materials. Notice how the shingles on the
roof are consistent.
FIGURE 30.5
Architectural materials make adding textures to a building easy.

Using the DirectX and MetaSL Shader Material

The Material Editor includes support for DirectX 9 and 10 shaders using the DirectX Shader material. These
shaders are saved as .fx files and are available only if the Direct3D display driver is enabled. FX files are text
files created using the Higher-Level Shader Language (HLSL). The DirectX Shader also can load in NVidia
CgFX files and mental image’s MetaSL shaders, saved with the .XMSL extension.

Note
The DirectX Shader material is available only if you are using the DirectX display driver. n
In the maps/fx directory where Max is installed are several example DirectX shaders. You can load these
example shaders using the button in the DirectX Shader rollout. The available parameters are different for
each shader. Figure 30.6 shows several rifles with various FX shaders applied.
FX shaders are commonly used in games, and applying an FX shader to an object displays the shader in the
viewport. This display looks the same as if the object were rendered in the game engine. However, if you
render an object with an FX shader applied, it will appear as default gray unless you specify a material to
appear using the Software Render Style rollout.

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