For many surfaces, you
can obtain good results by choosing a simple but appropriate material
and changing just a few settings. In this lesson, you will use this
approach to add surface detail to a railing, the walls of a house,
and the water for a swimming pool and for the sea itself.
Set up the lesson:
- On the Quick Access toolbar, click (Open File), navigate to
the \scenes\materials_and_mapping\med_villa folder,
and open the scene file med_villa_mat_start.max.
NoteIf a dialog asks
whether you want to use the scene’s Gamma And LUT settings, accept
the scene Gamma settings, and click OK. If a dialog asks whether
to use the scene’s units, accept the scene units, and click OK.
Although the villa scene
is set up with lighting and cameras, it has no materials. The effect
is rather featureless and unrealistic: This is typical of newly
created geometry in 3ds Max Design.
Create a material for the railings:
- On the main toolbar, click (Material Editor) to open the
Slate Material Editor.
TipIf this is the first
time you are using the Slate Material Editor, you might need to
resize it so you can easily see all three of the columns in its interface.
Also, to see changes
in the viewport, it will help to minimize the Slate Material Editor
while you work, and then restore it when you need to work on materials
some more.
The Material Editor is
a sort of workbench for creating, adjusting, managing, and applying
materials to objects. The main portions of its interface are:
- On the left, a Material/Map Browser panel
where you can choose material and map types (or ready-made materials)
to add to the scene.
- In the middle, a View panel where materials
and maps appear as nodes that you can wire together.
- On the lower right, a Parameter Editor
where you can edit the material and map controls.
TipIf the Compact Material
Editor opens instead, then on the Material Editor menu bar, choose
Modes
Slate
Material Editor. The Compact Material Editor has a smaller window,
with conspicuous
sample slots near the top of its
interface.
- On the Material/Map Browser panel to
the left, locate Materials mental
ray Arch & Design, and
drag the Arch & Design entry from the Browser to the active
View.
3ds Max Design displays an
Arch & Design material node in the active view.
In 3ds Max Design, Arch &
Design is the default material type. It is an extremely versatile
material interface, but it has a large number of controls, as you
can see. In this tutorial, we will use both the Arch & Design
material and Autodesk Materials. Autodesk Materials are based on
Arch & Design. Like Arch & Design, they are physically accurate,
but they have simplified interfaces based on real-world material
settings.
- Double-click the Arch & Design material
node.
The parameters for the
Arch & Design material appear in the Parameter Editor on the
right side of the Slate Material Editor. They are grouped into rollouts.
- In the Name field, at the top of the
Parameter Editor, change the material name to Blue Railings.
It is good to get in
the habit of naming a material as soon as you create it. In a complex
scene, intelligible material names are useful.
Notice that as you change
the name, the name in the title bar of the material node in the
active View updates as well.
Change the color of the railings:
- On the Templates rollout, open the drop-down
list of templates and choose Glossy Finish.
- In the Main Material Parameters rollout Diffuse group, click
the color swatch.
3ds Max Design opens a Color
Selector dialog.
- In the Color Selector, choose a medium-dark
blue color.
There are a few ways
to do this, but probably it is easiest to click the large spectrum
on the left side of the Color Selector. If the color seems too washed
out, drag the Saturation slider to the right, near 100 percent.
- Click OK to close the Color Selector.
The preview in the title
bar of the Blue Railings material node now
shows the blue color.
- Double-click the preview to make it larger.
TipTo make the preview
smaller, you can double-click it again.
- The material is a little too glossy.
In the Main Material Parameters rollout Reflection group, change the value of Reflectivity
to 0.3.
Apply the material to the railings:
- If the Layers toolbar isn’t visible,
right-click the gray area to the right of the main toolbar, and
choose Layers to display this toolbar.
- From the drop-down list of layers on
the toolbar, choose Railings.
- On the toolbar, click (Select Objects In Current Layer).
This selects the railings
in the scene: both the railings along the deck, overlooking the
ocean, and the railings on the balcony of the house.
- On the Slate Material Editor toolbar,
click (Assign Material To Selection).
In the scene, the railings
turn blue.
Look at the material
preview: It now has angled corners.
Angled corners on a preview
mean that the material has been applied to at least one object in
the scene. When the angled corners are solid white, as they are
in this case, the material is said to be hot. When you
make changes to a hot material, the scene changes immediately, and
usually the viewport display shows the material changes you have
made.
- In the Slate Material Editor active View,
double-click the Blue Railings preview to make
the preview smaller, then click the minus-sign icon (–) to collapse
the node display, and drag the node to the upper left of the View
so it is out of the way.
Create a material for the house:
- On the Layers toolbar, choose exterior walls from
the list of layers, and then click (Select Objects In Current
Layer).
This selects the exterior
walls of the house.
- In the Slate Material Editor, drag another
Arch & Design material from the Browser panel into the active
View. Double-click the new material node to see its parameters.
- Name this new material White
Concrete.
- On the Templates rollout, open the drop-down
list of templates and choose Matte Finish.
- In the Main Material Parameters rollout Diffuse group, click
the color swatch.
- On the Color Selector, change the Value
to 0.9 so the color is very slightly
gray, or “off-white.” Click OK.
These settings handle
the finish and color of the white concrete house, but concrete often
has a texture to it, as well.
- On the White Concrete material node,
drag a wire away from the Bump Map input socket, and then release the
mouse.
3ds Max Design opens a pop-up
menu so you can complete the connection.
- From the pop-up menu, choose Standard Bitmap.
3ds Max Design opens a file
dialog.
- On the file dialog, choose simple_concrete_mtl_broomcurved_pattern.jpg, and then
click Open.
- Double-click the White Concrete material
node so you can see its parameters.
- On the Special Purpose Maps rollout,
change the Bump map amount value to 1.0.
- On the Slate Material Editor toolbar,
click (Assign Material To Selection).
In the shaded viewports,
the house turns to a light gray color.
Use a rendering to see the White Concrete
texture:
The distant views of
the house won’t show the concrete texture clearly, but if you render
a close-up of the house, the texture will be apparent.
- Minimize the Slate Material Editor.
- Click the POV viewport label of the Camera-Terrace
viewport, and choose Cameras Camera_house_closeup.
- With the Camera_house_closeup viewport
active, click (Render Production).
The close-up view of
the porch of the house shows the concrete texture well.
- Close the rendered frame
window.
- Change the viewport back to Cameras Camera-Terrace.
- In the Slate Material Editor, click the
minus-sign icon to minimize the White Concrete material
node. Move the Bitmap node so it is not far away from its parent,
then on the toolbar, click (Move Children), and drag
the White Concrete node to move both
nodes out of the way, near the Blue Railings node.
- Click (Move Children) again to
turn it off.
Create a material for the interior walls:
- On the Layers toolbar, choose interior walls from
the list of layers, and then click (Select Objects In Current
Layer).
In the views that are
active now, you can’t really see the interior.
- Right-click a viewport, and choose Isolate
Selection from the Display (upper-right) quadrant of the quad menu.
Now you can see the interior
wall selection even in the shaded camera viewports.
TipYou might have to
move the Warning: Isolated Selection dialog to see the geometry
clearly.
- In the Slate Material Editor, drag an
Autodesk Wall Paint material from the Browser into the active View.
(Like the Arch & Design material, Autodesk Wall Paint is also
in the Materials mental
ray group.)
- Double-click the new material node so
you can see its parameters.
- Name this material Interior Walls.
- On the Wall Paint rollout, click the
Color swatch. In the Color Selector, choose a light cream color:
Red=0.9, Green=0.8, Blue=0.5.
Click OK to close the Color Selector.
- Also on the Wall Paint rollout, open
the Finish drop-down list and choose Platinum. Leave Application
set to its default value of Roller.
- On the Slate Material Editor toolbar,
click (Assign Material To Selection).
In the shaded viewports,
the interior walls now have a light cream color.
- On the Warning: Isolated Selection dialog,
click Exit Isolation Mode so you can see the entire scene once again.
- In the Slate Material Editor, move the Interior Walls node
near the nodes of the other materials you’ve already designed.
Create a water material for the swimming pool:
- Drag an Autodesk Water material from
the Browser into the active View. Double-click the node so you can
see its parameters, and name this material Water - Pool.
- Click the Material Type button. In the
Browser, choose Autodesk Water from the list of materials, and then
click OK.
The default setting for
the Autodesk Water material is Swimming Pool, which has its own
custom color. This is appropriate for this scene, so don’t change
the Type setting.
- Drag the Wave Height slider so the value
is about 0.4.
The swimming pool doesn’t
need large waves.
- Move the Slate Material Editor window
so you can see at least one of the shaded viewports. Drag from the
output socket (the circle at the right) of the Water - Pool material
node, and release the mouse (“drop” the material) over the pool-water object.
The water turns transparent.
Dragging and dropping
from the output of a material node is a shortcut way to assign a
material. It is useful when you apply the material to a single object,
such as the water in the pool.
- In the active View, minimize the Water
- Pool node and move it near the other nodes you’ve created already.
Create a different water material for
the ocean:
- Move the Slate Material Editor window
so you can see the Left viewport. Click the POV viewport label of
the Left viewport, and change it to a Top viewport. If you need
to, click (Zoom Extents) so you can
see all the objects in the scene.
- Drag another Autodesk Water material
from the Browser into the active View. Double-click the node so
you can see its parameters, and name this material Water
- Sea.
- On the Water rollout, change the Type
to Generic Sea/Ocean and the Color to Generic Sea/Ocean.
- Drag from the output socket of the Water
- Sea material node, and in the Top viewport, drop the
material on the Sea object.
- On the main 3ds Max Design toolbar, click (Render Production).
Even simple materials
greatly improve the realism of the scene.
NoteAt this point, the
shadows at the end of the pool look a bit strange, but don’t worry
about that: When you apply a material to the bottom of the pool,
this problem will go away.
Save your work:
- Save the scene as my_villa_simple_mtls.max.