Material Editor > Maps rollout > Click a Map button. > Material/Map Browser > Vertex Color
Vertex Color map makes any vertex coloring applied to an object available for rendering. You can assign vertex colors using the Assign Vertex Colors utility, or the vertex controls for an editable mesh, editable patch, or editable poly.
While vertex color assignment is primarily used for special applications, such as game engines or radiosity renderers, you can also use it to create colorful, gradient surface effects. You can also use it in design visualization: Use the Vertex Color map to use the vertex coloring in your rendered images. Incidentally, when you use the Terrain object's Color By Elevation function, the software assigns a material that uses a Vertex Color map as the diffuse component.
Tip: To view vertex colors in a viewport, right-click the object, choose Properties from the quad menu, and then turn on Vertex Channel Display in the Display Properties group.
These parameters let you define which map channel or sub-channel is to be rendered.
The settings are interlinked; changing one parameter will change the other two, as appropriate.
Map Channel—Lets you specify which map channel to use. Range=0 to 99. Default=0.
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If you set Map Channel to a channel that doesn't contain any vertex coloring data, attempting to render will generate a Missing Map Coordinates error message. To resolve this, apply vertex coloring to that channel.
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By default, the vertex coloring in map channel 1 is a color gradient derived from the UVW texture coordinates by converting UVW values to RGB values. Thus, at UV=0,0 (the lower-left corner of the map), the coloring is black; at UV=1,0, the coloring is red, and at UV=1,1 (the upper-right corner), the coloring is yellow (red + green=yellow).
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Map Channel cannot be set to a negative value, thus the map doesn't support rendering of the vertex illumination (-1) or vertex alpha (-2) channel.
Sub Channel—Lets you can specify that the map will use either the Red, Green, or Blue sub-channel of the specified map channel, or all sub-channels.
Channel Name—After assigning the material with the Vertex Color map to an object with named map or vertex-color channels, you can click Update, and then, from this drop-down list, choose a named map channel from the object.
Update—Refreshes the contents of the Channel Name drop-down list. Use Update after applying the material to an object, or after adding channels to the object.
Note: There could be conflicts if one material with a Vertex Color map is assigned to objects with different named Map Channels, where one channel's name may be displayed in preference to another's.