Introduction to Materials and Mapping

Materials are like paint. With materials, you make apples red and oranges orange. You put the shine in chrome and the polish on glass. By applying maps, you can add images, patterns, and even surface texture to objects. Materials are what make your scenes look real.

Mapping is a method of projecting pictorial information (materials) onto surfaces. It is a lot like wrapping a present with wrapping paper, except the pattern is projected mathematically, with modifiers, rather than being taped to the surface.

This tutorial introduces the Material Editor, the master design studio for materials and maps. In the following lessons, you will learn how to assign materials to objects, how to create basic materials, and how to create several kinds of advanced materials.

Skill level: Basic to intermediate

Time to complete: 90 minutes

Features Covered in This Tutorial

In these lessons you will learn:

Accessing materials from material libraries, scene objects, and other MAX files.
Assigning materials to scene objects.
Creating basic materials, including wireframe, 2-sided, and self-illuminated.
Using ambient color and light with materials.
Creating additive and subtractive transparency.
Using texture, opacity and bump mapping.
Creating and adjusting mapping coordinates.
Creating multi/sub-object materials using drag and drop.
Creating a raytrace material.
Using displacement mapping.
Creating stars using noise.
Using Shellac material to create realistic human skin.

Tutorial Files

All the files necessary for this tutorial are provided on the program disc in the \tutorials\intro_to_materials directory. Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials folder from the disc to your local program installation.

Introduction to Materials and Mapping

Features Covered in This Tutorial

Tutorial Files

In This Tutorial