Menu Bar (Material Explorer Scene Panel)

Command entry:Rendering menu

Material Explorer

Scene upper) panel

Menu bar

Command entry: Point-Of-View (POV) viewport label menu

Extended Viewports

Material Explorer

Scene (upper) panel

Menu bar

The Scene panel menu bar contains various options for managing materials and the display of the window in the upper Scene panel.

Select Menu

Some of these choices correspond to buttons on the Selection toolbar.

Select All: Selects all entries in the scene.
Select All Materials: Selects all materials in the scene.
Select All Maps: Selects all maps in the scene.

NoteFor most scenes, the effect of this choice isn’t apparent unless you also turn on Display Sub-Materials/Maps.
Select None: Deselects all entries.
Select Invert: Inverts the current selection: all selected entries become deselected, and all entries not selected become selected.
Select Children: This choice is a toggle. When on, selecting a material or object also selects the children of that entry. Default=off.

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These choices are toggles that affect the behavior of the Find field on the Find toolbar.

Find Case Sensitive: When on, the search string is case sensitive: “house” is not the same as “House”. Default=off.
Find Using Wildcards: When on, the search string can use wildcard characters such as * and ?. Default=on.
Find Using Regular Expressions: When on, the search string can use regular expressions; for example, “gr(a|e)y”. Default=off.

Display Menu

These choices correspond to the Display buttons.

NoteThe Display menu also appears as a pop-up menu when you right-click a cell in the upper window.

Display Thumbnails: When on, the hierarchy displays a thumbnail for each material and map. When off, it displays a generic icon materials and maps. Default=on.
Display Materials: When on, the hierarchy includes materials. When off, it does not show materials at all. Default=on.
Display Maps: When on, the hierarchy of each material includes includes the maps used by that material. Default=on.

NoteFor most scenes, the effect of this isn’t apparent unless you also turn on Display Sub-Materials/Maps.
Display Objects: When on, the hierarchy of each material includes the objects to which that material is applied. Default=on.
Display Sub-Materials/Maps: When on, the hierarchy includes sub-materials and maps applied to material channels. Default=off.
Display Unused Map Channels: When on, the hierarchy display includes unused map channels. Default=off.

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These two sorting options are mutually exclusive. They correspond to a pair of Display buttons.

Sort By Material: (The default.) While active, the hierarchy is sorted by material name.
Sort By Object: While active, the hierarchy is sorted by object.

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These choices control the hierarchy display.

Expand All: Expands the hierarchy to display all entries.
Expand Selected: Expands the hierarchy of selected entries.
Expand Objects: Expands the hierarchy of all objects.
Collapse All: Collapses the entire hierarchy.
Collapse Selected: Collapses the hierarchy of selected entries.
Collapse Materials: Collapses the hierarchy of all materials.
Collapse Objects: Collapses the hierarchy of all objects.

Tools Menu

Save Material As Material Library: Opens a file dialog that lets you save the materials in the scene as a material library (.mat) file.
Select Object By Material: Opens a Select Objects dialog. The names of objects with the active material applied are highlighted. Click to select the objects that have had this material applied.

This choice is unavailable if no materials are selected in the Explorer, or if multiple materials are selected.
Bitmap/Photometric Paths: Opens the Bitmap / Photometric Path Editor dialog, which lets you manage the paths of bitmaps in the scene.
Proxies Setup: Opens the Global Settings And Defaults For Bitmap Proxies dialog, which lets you manage how 3ds Max creates and uses proxy versions of bitmaps incorporated in materials. This dialog is a feature of Asset Tracking.

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Delete Sub-Materials/Maps: When one or more sub-materials or maps applied to a material are selected, deletes the selected sub-materials or maps.
Lock Cell Editing: When on, prevents you from editing cells in the Explorer: clicking a cell has no effect, other than to highlight and select the row it is in. Default=off.

Customize Menu

Configure Columns

Opens the Configure Columns dialog so you can add columns to the Scene (upper) window. See Columns (Material Explorer Scene Panel).

Toolbars

Displays a submenu that lets you choose which of the Material Explorer toolbars appear.

Find Toggles display of the Find toolbar.
Selection Toggles display of the Selection toolbar.
Tools Toggles display of the Tools toolbar.

Save Current Layout as Default

Saves the current Material Explorer layout so that it appears this way in your next session with 3ds Max.

The layout file for the Material Explorer is called defaultmmaterialexplorer.ini. It is saved in C:\documents and settings\<user name>\local settings\application data\autodesk\3ds max\<version>\enu\plugcfg\explorerconfig\material explorer\. You can revert to the default layout by deleting this file and restarting 3ds Max.