Displays the Material/Map Browser to allow you to choose a material or map.
Note: When you click Get Material, the Browser that appears is modeless (you can leave it displayed while you do other work). However, when you display the Browser by clicking the Type button, a map assignment button in the Environment dialog, or from a projector light, it appears as a modal dialog with OK and Cancel buttons.
You can leave the modeless Browser displayed, and drag materials from its listings to any material or map window in the 3DS MAX user interface. When the Browser displays a Material Library, you can also add materials to the library by dragging them from the Material Editor sample windows.
When you drag a material or map from one location to another, an alert appears, where appropriate, that lets you choose between making a copy of the material or an instance of the material.
When you double-click a material or map in the Browser, it places that material or map in the active window of the Material Editor. It automatically chooses between an instance or a copy, as follows:
Here is the recommended way to navigate materials, using the Browser in conjunction with the Materials Editor.
This provides a simpler view of your materials, and speeds redraws when you’re using any of the icon display modes. (You can also create thumbnails to speed up redraws, as described below in the "How To" section.)
To delete an assigned map, choose New in the Browser, and drag the NONE item over the button containing the map you want to remove.
Tip: You can remove a material completely from an object in the scene by dragging the NONE item from the Browser over to the object.
The Material/Map Browser contains the following controls:
Text Entry: As you enter a material name in this field, the first matching text item is selected in the list window. Press ENTER, to select next matching name, and so on.
For example, if you enter ch when the list includes the material names Cherry Red, Chrome Blue, and Chrome Zinc, Cherry Red is selected first. Press ENTER, and the Chrome Blue is selected. Press ENTER again, and Chrome Zinc is selected.
The search is not case-sensitive.
Sample Window: Below the text-entry field is a single sample window. The window displays a sample of the current selection, and you can drag the sample to any other material window in 3DS MAX. The window display is interruptable, so you can quickly click from one list item to the next without waiting. In addition, displays are cached, so if you complete the display of one sample, then move on to another sample, when you return to the first sample, it displays instantly.
The first part of this row of buttons controls how you view the list. The second part is for managing material libraries.
To speed up the display of the sample spheres in the Browser, the smaller of the sample spheres (those displayed when you choose View Small Icons or View List + Icons) can be saved as thumbnail images in the material library file. (See the How Tos for this topic.)
Keep in mind that the saved thumbnails increase the size of the material-library file.
View List: Displays the materials and maps in list format. Blue spheres are materials. Green parallelograms are maps. The green parallelograms turns red if the map is assigned to a material in the scene and that material is displayed in the viewports (the Show Map in Viewport button is on).
View List + Icons: Displays the materials and maps in a list with small icons.
View Small Icons: Displays the materials and maps as small icons. As you move the mouse over the icons, tooltip labels pop up, showing you the name of the material or map.
View Large Icons: Displays the materials and maps as large icons.
The large icons are labeled with the name of the material or map and are displayed using progressive refinement -- samples are rendered quickly, with large pixels, then rendered a second time in greater detail.
Update Scene Materials from Library: Updates materials in the scene with the materials of the same name stored in the library.
When you click Update Scene Materials from Library, a dialog appears listing all materials in the library that have the same name as materials in the scene. Select the materials from the list window that you want to update in the scene, and then click OK.
If no materials exist in the scene that match the names in the library, an alert informs you of this.
Disabled unless the Browser is viewing a library.
Delete from Library: Removes the selected material from the library display. The library on disk is not affected until you save it explicitly. Use Open to reload the original library from disk. This button is only active when you select a named material that exists in the current library.
Disabled unless the Browser is viewing a library.
Clear Material Library: Removes all materials from the library display. The library on disk is not affected until you save it explicitly. Use Open to reload the original library from disk.
Disabled unless the Browser is viewing a library.
Determines the source of the materials displayed in the list window.
Material Library: Displays the contents of a material library file from disk. When you set this option, the buttons under File become active (see below).
You can now load a library from a MAX file. When browsing from the Material Library in the Material/Map Browser, choose Open, and then choose 3D Studio MAX (*.max) from Files of type. Select and load a .max file. All materials assigned in that scene are listed in the Browser. To convert the collection of materials to a library file, click Save, and save it as a MAT (.mat) file.
Material Editor: Displays the contents of the sample windows.
Active Slot: Displays the contents of the currently active sample window.
This option is disabled in the modal version of the Browser.
When you choose this mode, all checkboxes in the Show area are disabled. The entire material and map tree of the active window is displayed, regardless of the state of these checkboxes in other Browse From modes.
You can also use Active Slot mode to navigate the hierarchy of the active material. Thus, when you click on an item in the Browser list window, you move to that level of the material.
Selected: Displays the material assigned to the selected objects.
Scene: Displays all materials assigned to objects in the scene.
All maps assigned to the scene, including Environment Background or spotlight projector maps, are displayed in the Browser list.
New: Displays the set of 3DS MAX material/map types for you to create a new material.
These options filter what is displayed in the list. Either Materials or Maps is always on, and both can be on at the same time. The next two options can be disabled, depending on the active Browse From and View settings.
Materials: Turns display of materials and submaterials on or off.
This is always disabled in the modal version of the Browser.
Maps: Turns display of maps on or off.
This is always disabled in the modal version of the Browser.
Root Only: When on, only the root of the material hierarchy shows in the window. When off, the full hierarchy is displayed. The state of this setting changes depending on how you bring up the Browser. Generally, when you bring up the modeless Browser, you’re selecting materials rather than maps (to begin with), so the checkbox is set to Root Only. However, when you bring up the modal Browser (by clicking a map button anywhere in 3DS MAX), the Root Only item is off so you can see all of the maps.
By Object: This is enabled only when you’re viewing one of the two list modes, and when you’re browsing from either Scene or Selected. When By Object is on, the list displays materials by their object assignment in the scene. At the left are the names of the objects (selected or in the scene), arranged alphabetically, and using the yellow cube icons, as in Track View. Their assigned materials are shown as children of the objects.
This button area appears when Material Library, Material Editor, Selected, or Scene is selected under Browse From. Only the Material Library has all four possibilities.
Open: Opens a material library from disk.
Merge: Merges materials from another material library or 3DS MAX scene.
If one or more materials in the source library have the same name as materials in the destination library, a Duplicate Name dialog appears displaying the name of the matching material in an editable field, along with buttons, labeled Merge, Skip, Delete Old, and Cancel. You can edit the name in the field to be unique, and then click on Merge to proceed; you can click Skip to not merge this material; or you can click Delete Old to replace the material currently in the library with this new one. (Or, you can click Cancel to cancel the rest of the Merge.)
Also in the Duplicate Name dialog is a checkbox labeled, Apply to All Duplicates. If you check this before proceeding, all subsequent incoming materials that have duplicate names are treated in the same way as the current one, and no further alert messages appear. Use this option when you know that you’ve got several duplicate objects, and don’t need constant reminders. (If you rename the current incoming object, this option is not available.)
Save: Saves the open material library.
Save As: Saves the open material library under another name.
A Merge dialog appears, listing all materials in the specified library, or all materials assigned to the scene of the MAX file. Below the list window are All and None buttons to help in the selection.
The selected materials are merged into the current material library.
The action of displaying the icons automatically creates thumbnails in memory.
Important: If you want to include thumbnails of the submaterials and maps, be sure to turn off Root Only.
When you save the library, you save the thumbnail images of the samples as they appeared in the Browser at that time. If you change any of the materials or maps later, you must resave the library after having displayed the icons again in order to update the thumbnails. If you do not resave the library after altering or adding a materials, the icon of the material will still appear correctly, but it will be rerendered when it first appears in the Browser, while all the other icons will appear immediately.