This section provides information on working with materials and textures.

A material affects how a surface appears when renders. A material can affect multiple aspects of the appearance of an object simultaneously such as color, glossiness, opacity. A standard material for example has ambient, diffuse, and specular components.

A map is either a bitmap, a procedural map (Checker or Marble), and image-processing systems such as compositors and masking systems. Maps can be applied to different components of the material.

A texture is typically a map that applies colors and patterns to a surface. In other words, a texture is a map, but not all maps are textures.

In 3ds Max, every texture or material may have sub-texture or sub-materials. A texture that is composed of sub-textures is called a multi-texture, and a material that is composed of sub-materials is called a multi-material.