Maps

A Standard material’s Maps rollout lets you access and assign maps to various components of the material, as listed below.

You can choose from a large variety of map types. Use the Map Types topic to find descriptions of these types, and how to set their parameters.

Map Types

The Maps rollout contains a wide button for each map type. Click this button to select a bitmap file stored on disk or to select a procedural-map type. After you select a map, its name and type appears on the button. The checkbox to the left of the button allows you to turn the effect of the map off and on. When the checkbox is unchecked, the map is not computed and has no effect in the renderer.

The Amount spinner determines the amount that the map affects the material expressed as a percentage of full intensity. For example, a diffuse map at 100% is completely opaque and covers the base material. At 50%, it is semi-transparent and the base material (the diffuse, ambient, and other colors of the material without mapping) shows through.

Ambient Map

Diffuse Map

Specular Map

Shininess Map

Shininess Strength Map

Opacity Map

Self-Illumination Map

Filter Color Map

Bump Map

Reflection Map

Refraction Map

Note: The submaterial buttons and submap buttons for most materials and maps have checkboxes beside each button. These let you disable or enable that branch of the material or map. For example, in the Top/Bottom material, the Top Material and Bottom Material buttons each have checkboxes. Similarly, the Checker map has two map buttons, one for each color. Each button has checkbox beside it that lets you disable that color’s map.

Assigning the Same Map to Different Parameters

Applying the same map to different parameters is useful in some cases. For example, using a pattern as both a self-illumination map and an opacity map can make the pattern appear to glow and hover in space.

Map used for both self-illumination and opacity

Blending Map Amounts for Opacity and Other Material Components

The Shininess, Shininess Strength, Self-Illumination, and Opacity values in the four spinners in the Basic Parameters rollout are blended with their associate map Amount values in the Maps rollout.

When the Opacity spinner is set to 0, the map Amount spinner completely controls Opacity. That is, reducing the Amount value increases the transparency of the entire surface. On the other hand, when Opacity is 100, reducing the map Amount value increases the opacity of the areas where the Opacity map is less than 1. Thus, you can now adjust a Checker Opacity map, for example, so that the solid areas remain solid, while the clear areas are semi-transparent.

The Shininess, Shininess Strength, and Self-Illumination channels all behave in the same way. A setting of 100 applies all of the map, while a setting of 0 is the equivalent of turning the map off.

 When you load old 3DS MAX files or bringing earlier materials the Browser into the Materials Editor, the spinner values for Opacity, Shininess, Shininess Strength, and Self Illumination are altered, where necessary, to maintain the equivalent material effect.

How To

To use the same map for different parameters:

1. In the Maps rollout, use a map button to assign a map.
2. Go back to the Maps rollout and drag the assigned map button to another map button.

The Copy (Instance) Map dialog appears.

3. Choose Copy or Instance, and then click OK.

If you choose Swap, the Material Editor swaps the two button assignments.

To find a map using the Browser:

1. Use the Browse From buttons to choose where you want to look.

If you choose Material Library and the dialog's display area is blank, you need to open a library file - click the Open button and then choose the library to browse.

2. Use the display buttons to choose how you view maps.

View List shows each map by name.

View Small Icons shows a small preview sphere for each map.

View Large Icons shows a large preview sphere for each map, along with the map's name.

3. Click to select the map you want, and then click OK.

Tip: You can resize the Browser dialog to increase the size of the display area. This is especially useful when you view large icons.

To view the parent material's parameters:

• If you are currently at the map level in the Material Editor, click Go to Parent.

The parameters for the map's parent material appear. Also, the Show End Result and Go to Parent buttons are grayed out.

To view a map's parameters:

• If you are currently at the material level in the Material Editor, click the button that corresponds to the map .

The parameters for the map appear. Also, the Show End Result and Go to Parent buttons are enabled.

In the Basic Parameters rollout, if a map has been assigned to a color component or parameter the corresponding button shows a letter M. In the Maps rollout, if a map has been assigned the corresponding button shows the map name.

To preview a map in a sample window:

1. Go to the map itself, as described in the previous topic.
2. Set Show End Result to off.

The sample window shows the map instead of the material.

To distinguish a map, the sample slot displays it with no three-dimensional shading.

To view a map's location:

1. Click the Material/Map Navigator button to view the Navigator.
2. Expand the Medit Materials branch, the branch of the material that has the map assigned, and the Maps container for that material.

To go to a map:

• Click the green parallelogram by the map's name.

As the Navigator's map tree shows, maps for basic material components and parameters are one level below the material itself.

To expand / collapse branches of the map tree:

When a branch of the tree is collapsed, there is a small plus sign in the circle to the right of the icon.

• Click the plus sign to expand the branch.

The Navigator displays the children of the branch. The plus sign changes to a minus sign.

• Click the minus sign to collapse the branch.

The Navigator hides the children of the branch. The minus sign changes to a plus sign.

Tip: The Navigator is usually easiest to use when you collapse most of the map tree and expand only the branch in which you're currently working.

To view the map interactively:

1. Select an object.
2. In the object's creation parameters, make sure that Generate Mapping Coords is checked.

If the object does not have mapping coordinates, 3D Studio MAX cannot map the object.

3. In the Material Editor, assign the mapped material to the object.
4. Turn on Show Map in Viewport.

The texture map appears on objects assigned the material in all shaded viewports. Now when you adjust the map, the viewports update to display the adjustments.

Setting Show Map in Viewport to on for one map automatically turns this button off for all other maps the material has.

Viewports can display Checker and Gradient maps as well as bitmaps. They cannot display other kinds of maps. Show Map in Viewport is grayed out if the active map type cannot display in viewports.

Displaying mapped materials in a viewport can slow performance. If you don't need to view the texture, turn off its viewport display.

To turn off interactive texture display:

• Turn off Show Map in Viewport.

The object is shaded but the map no longer appears.

To turn a map off:

• Turn on the map's check box.

To turn a map on:

• Turn off the map's check box.

To change a map's strength:

• Set the strength to a different value.

The material's sample window reflects the change you made.

Note: Changing a map's output can also change the map's strength, although the output controls do not behave the same as the Strength parameter.

To move directly to an ancestor:

1. Click the arrow to the right of the name field.
2. Click a name in the Ancestor list.

With this list, you can skip intermediate levels in the tree.

The Ancestor dropdown list shows only part of the tree - it does not show side branches and siblings. To view these, use the Material/Map Navigator.

To get a material:

1. Click Get Material in the Material Editor toolbar.

The Material/Map Browser appears.

2. Choose a material type - not a map type - from the list, and then click OK.

If the material in the sample slot did not have default values, an alert appears to warn you that getting the material replaces the entire material.

3. Click OK to get the new material or Cancel to keep the original material.

If you click OK, the Material Editor replaces the original material.

To change a map or material type:

1. Click button labeled Type below the Material Editor toolbar.

The Material/Map Browser appears. If you were at a material when you clicked Type, the Browser lists only materials; if you were at a map, it lists only maps.

2. Choose a material or map type from the list, and then click OK.

If you change a map type and the new map type can have component maps, a Replace Map dialog appears. This dialog gives you a choice between discarding the original map or using it as a component map.

If the new map type does not have components, it simply replaces the original map type.

To create a standalone map tree:

1. Activate a sample window.
2. Click Get Material.
3. In the Material/Map Browser, make sure Browse From is set to New.
4. Highlight the name of the map type you want to use, and then click OK.

Do not highlight the name of a material type.

The preview slot now contains a standalone map not associated with material parameters.

5. Use the Material Editor to modify the map as you would any other map.

The sample windows distinguish maps from materials by displaying maps as 2D surfaces without lighting or shading.