Materials Library

In the libraries, you can change the thumbnail preview either before or after adding the item to the library.

1. Select the object with the material applied to it in the working window and open the Materials Library
   
   OR
   
   Open the Materials Library and select the preset you want to change the thumbnail for.
   
   
2. Set up the preview of the material:

• Click the Triangle icon in the bottom-right corner of the thumbnail preview and choose a view option from the menu.
  
  
• Normal: is the default view of your selected material.
  
  
• Up Close: displays a close-up of your material.
  
  
• Render With Neutral Sky: displays your object with a flat sky, instead of the sky applied to your scene.
  
  
  
  When deselected, the current sky in the scene will affect the thumbnail preview, including haze and the sun's location.
  
  
• Render with Neutral Ground: displays the material with a gray ground plane.
  
  
  
  When deselected, the material is applied to the ground plane as well as to the selected object.
  
  
• Current Selection: displays the material on the same object type that is selected in the Working window. If the current selection is an imported mesh, the thumbnail preview will default to a sphere.
• Actual Selection: displays the material on the actual object selected in the Working window.
  
  
• Box: displays your material applied to a cube.
• Sphere: displays your material applied to a sphere.
• Cone: displays your material applied to a cone.
• Cylinder: displays your material applied to a cylinder.
• Terrain: displays your material applied to a terrain. You might want to disable Render With Neutral Ground as terrain materials look better when placed on a ground plane with the same material.
• Ground: displays your material applied to an infinite plane.
• Torus: displays your material applied to a torus object.
• Pyramid: displays your material applied to a pyramid object.
• Circle: displays your material applied to a 2D circle object.
• Square: displays your material applied to a 2D square object.
• Set up the preview of the material (see examples at bottom of page):
• Drag in the preview area to rotate the view of the material.
• Hold down the Spacebar and drag up, down, right, or left to pan the material preview.
• Hold down Cmd/Ctrl and drag in the preview area to zoom in and out of the preview.
• Press Alt and click in the preview area to reset the preview to the default.
• Example preview thumbnails:
• Default view with sun control setting:
  
  
• Up Close:
  
  
• Up Close and Render with Neutral Ground deselected:
  
  
• Up Close, Render with Neutral Ground/Sky deselected, Plain Black Background sky applied, and sun moved:
  
  

3. Once you're happy with the preview image, click on Add to add the material to the library
   
   OR
   
   If you are changing the thumbnail of an item already in the library, press Ctrl+Shift+click on the thumbnail in the library
   
   
   
   and the thumbnail preview will be replaced with the new one:
   
   

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