The Material Editor menu bar appears at the top of the Material Editor window. It provides another way to invoke the various Material Editor tools.
The Material menu provides the most commonly used Material Editor tools.
-
Change Material/Map Type—Equivalent to clicking the Material Type Button.
-
Launch Magnify Window—Equivalent to double-clicking the active sample slot, or choosing Magnify on its right-click menu.
-
Activate All Maps—Turns on Show Map in Viewport for every material used in the scene.
-
Deactivate All Maps—Turns off Show Map in Viewport for every material used in the scene.
-
Reset Sample Slot Rotation—Returns the active sample slot's object to its default orientation; equivalent to choosing Reset Rotation on the sample slot right-click menu.
-
Update Active Material—If Material Editor Options dialog > Update Active Only is on, choosing this updates the active material in its sample slot.
The Navigation menu provides tools that navigate a material's hierarchy.
The Options menu provides some additional tools and display choices.
-
Manual Update Toggle—Equivalent to the Manual Update toggle in the Material Editor Options dialog.
-
Copy/Rotate Drag Mode Toggle—Equivalent to choosing either Drag/Copy or Drag/Rotate on the sample slot right-click menu.
-
Custom Background Toggle—If you have used the Material Editor Options dialog to assign a custom background, this toggles its display.
-
Cycle 3X2, 5X3, 6X4 Sample Slots—Cycles through the equivalent choices on the sample slot right-click menu.
-
Options—Opens the Material Editor Options dialog.
The Utilities menu provides map rendering and selecting objects by material.
-
Render Map—Equivalent to choosing Render Map on the sample slot right-click menu.
-
Reset Material Editor Slots—Replaces all materials in the Material Editor with the default material type. This action is not undoable, but you can restore the previous state of the Material Editor with the Restore Material Editor Slots command (see below).
-
Condense Material Editor Slots—Sets all unused materials in the Material Editor to the default type, retaining only materials in the scene and moving those materials to the first slots in the editor. This action is not undoable, but you can restore the previous state of the Material Editor with the Restore Material Editor Slots command (see below).
-
Restore Material Editor Slots—When you use either of the two previous commands, 3ds Max saves the current state of the Material Editor in a buffer; using this command restores the state of the editor using the buffer contents.
Tip: The buffer that holds the material definitions survives the File menu > Reset command. Thus, if you use either the Reset Material Editor Slots or the Condense Material Editor Slots function, and then reset 3ds Max, you can then use Restore Material Editor Slots to bring all materials back into the Material Editor. This makes it easy to use the same materials in different projects.
For best results, follow this procedure:
-
Use the Reset Material Editor Slots or Condense Material Editor Slots function.
-
Reset 3ds Max. When prompted to save the scene, click No. Otherwise, you might lose material definitions in the Material Editor that were saved with the scene.
-
Open the Material Editor and choose Utilities menu > Restore Material Editor Slots.