Viewport Display of Materials

Command entry:

(Material Editor): Slate

Slate Material Editor toolbar

Show Shaded/Realistic Material in Viewport flyout

Command entry:

(Material Editor): Slate

Right-click a material or map node.

Context pop-up menu

Show Shaded Material in Viewport or Show Realistic Material in Viewport

Command entry:

(Material Editor): Compact

Show Shaded/Realistic Material in Viewport flyout

Command entry:Compact Material Editor menu bar

Material menu

Show Materials in Viewport As

Command entry:Main 3ds Max menu

Views menu

Show Materials in Viewport As

Command entry:Keyboard

Shift+F3 switches to Realistic from other shading styles

Viewports can display materials in either a Shaded or a Realistic style, with or without the maps they use.

Left: Map shown on sample cube

Right: Map shown in a viewport

The main Material Editor control for shading materials in viewports, and toggling display of maps, is a flyout with four possible states:

Show Shaded Material in Viewport [off]: Uses the Shaded (Phong) style and disables viewport display of all maps.
Show Shaded Material in Viewport [on]: Uses the Shaded (Phong) style and enables viewport display of all maps.
Show Realistic Material in Viewport [off]: Uses the Realistic style and disables viewport display of all maps.
Show Realistic Material in Viewport [on]: Uses the Realistic style and enables viewport display of all maps.

NoteIf you are using a legacy viewport driver instead of Nitrous, these options read "Standard" and "Hardware" rather than "Shaded" and "Realistic," as they did in versions of 3ds Max prior to 3ds Max 2012.

TipChoosing the alternate flyout button does not toggle the button state. For example, if Show Shaded Material In Viewport is off for the active material, choosing Show Realistic Material In Viewport simply switches the material to Realistic display mode; it does not turn on the maps. You must turn on the button explicitly to see maps in viewports.

The Slate Material Editor indicates that map display is on with a diagonal red shape in node title bars, the Material/Map Browser, and the Navigator. See Indicators for Show Map In Viewport.

This control is also available at the map level, where it functions only as a toggle for the option set at the material level, and applies only to the active map. So, for example, you could enable viewport display of the bump map while disabling display of the diffuse map, although both would appear in the final rendered image. Changing the setting at the material level overrides any map-level settings.

NoteIf the toggle is unavailable at a map level, it means viewport display of the map is unsupported. One possible reason is that the map is nested too deep in the material tree.

The following image, taken from a 3ds Max viewport, shows two spheres to which are applied two copies of an Arch & Design material with identical settings, including texture-mapped diffuse color and bump maps, a high reflectivity level, and a Checker map applied to the Anisotropy channel. The scene also includes a Daylight system with mr Sun and Sky, with the Environment Map set to mr Physical Sky. The only difference is that the material on the left-hand sphere is set to Show Shaded Material In Viewport, while the material on the right-hand sphere is set to Show Realistic Material In Viewport. The latter shows the bump map, reflection of the sky, and the checkered anisotropy in the specular highlight. When rendered, the spheres appear identical, and look similar to the right-hand sphere.

When you save a material in a library, the state of this button is also saved. When you apply a mapped material while the button is on, the object's Generate Mapping Coords. check box is turned on. This means that you can drag mapped materials from the Material Library in the Browser over objects in your scene, and have the mapped material appear in the viewports.

You can toggle Show Shaded/Realistic Material In Viewport for all materials by choosing Views menu Show Materials in Viewport. These controls are also available from the Compact Material Editor Material menu and (while using Nitrous) the Shading viewport label menu.

3D procedural maps can display in viewports, except for the Particle Age and Particle MBlur maps.

Setting Up Mapped Materials

For a mapped material to display in viewports, the following conditions must be met:

Mapping coordinates must be applied to the object. This is already the case with most primitive objects, which by default have Generate Mapping Coords on at creation. If an object doesn't have mapping coordinates, you can turn this on, or apply a mapped material to the object (if it has a Generate Mapping Coords check box), or apply a UVW Map modifier or an Unwrap UVW modifier.
A mapped material must be applied to the object.
The Show Shaded/Realistic Material In Viewport toggle must be on, either at the level of the material that contains the map, or at the top level of the material.

Procedures

To view maps interactively:

Select an object.
In the object's parameters, make sure that Generate Mapping Coords. is on. (If this option isn't enabled, the object can't be mapped.)
If the object type does not have a mapping coordinates check box, apply a UVW Map modifier.
In the Material Editor, apply the mapped material to the object.
Turn on (Show Shaded Material In Viewport), or with a Standard, Arch & Design, or Autodesk material, choose and then turn on (Show Realistic Material In Viewport).
The map appears on objects assigned the material in all shaded viewports. Now when you adjust a map, the viewports update to display the adjustments.

To turn off interactive texture display:

Turn off (Show Shaded/Realistic Map In Viewport).
The object is still shaded but the map no longer appears.

Material Display and Viewport Drivers

The appearance of materials in viewports depends on which graphics driver you are using. At the low end is software display alone, and at the high end is the Nitrous viewport system.

Nitrous driver
Provides a render-quality display environment that supports unlimited lights, soft shadows, screen-space ambient occlusion, tone-mapping, and high-quality transparency, along with progressive refinement of image quality when 3ds Max is not otherwise busy.
Direct3D driver
Supports both Shaded and Realistic display. Uses hardware support for the Standard Material, Arch & Design material, and Autodesk Materials.

Supports Diffuse, Specular, and Bump mapping, as well as Anisotropy and BRDF settings.
OpenGL driver
Supports only Shaded display. Only Diffuse maps appear in viewports. Cannot display shadows or ambient occlusion.
Software display driver (32-bit only)
Supports only Shaded display. Only Diffuse maps appear in viewports, and only one map displays at a time. Cannot display shadows or ambient occlusion. Display of transparent materials is limited and not accurate.

Notes

Here are some points to keep in mind:

Realistic display with the Direct3D driver applies only to the Standard material, Arch & Design material, and Autodesk Materials; the driver still uses software to render all other materials.
The Show options do not apply to XRef materials, including materials from XRef objects and XRef scenes
Displaying mapped materials in a viewport can slow performance. If you don't need to view the map, turn off its viewport display.
With the Direct3D driver, 3D map display in viewports is not necessarily accurate. To improve the 3D preview, in the Compact Material Editor you can use the Material Editor Options dialog to set the 3D Map Sample Scale to equal a main dimension of the object you are applying the map to. For example, if you want to use the planet map on a sphere with a radius of 20, change the map scale from 100 (the default) to 20.