Compound materials combine two or more sub-materials for a variegated look, especially when used with maps. Compound materials are similar to compositor maps, but they exist at the material level. You load or create compound materials using the Material/Map Browser.
Different types of materials create different effects, behave in particular ways, or are provided as ways to combine multiple materials.
The Blend material lets you mix two materials on a single side of the surface. Blend has an animatable Mix Amount parameter that lets you draw material morphing function curves to control the way that the two materials are blended over time.
Composite material composites up to 10 materials. The materials are superimposed from top to bottom, as listed in the rollout. Materials are combined using additive opacity, subtractive opacity, or mixed using an Amount value.
The Double Sided material lets you assign two different materials to the front and back faces of an object.
The Morpher material works hand-in-hand with the Morpher modifier. You can use it to make the cheeks of a character blush, or to wrinkle a character's forehead when the eyebrows are raised. With the Morpher modifier's channel spinners, you can blend materials the same way you morph the geometry.
The Multi/Sub-Object material lets you assign different materials at the sub-object level of your geometry. You create a multi-material, assign it to an object, and then use the Mesh Select modifier to select faces and choose which of the sub-materials in the multi-material are assigned to the selected faces.
Shellac material mixes two materials by superimposing one over the other. Colors in the superimposed material, called the "shellac" material, are added to colors in the base material. A Shellac Color Blend parameter controls the amount of color mixing.
The Top/Bottom material lets you assign two different materials to the top and bottom portions of an object. You can blend the materials into one another.
