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| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Automatic | This is a material's default type. It provides a Roughness parameter; as Roughness is decreased, the material will shift from a pure diffuse to a smooth plasticine material. |
Opaque Transparent Translucent AGS Metal | These are based on the Maxwell Material Assistants. For more information on their parameters, please see here. |
| Plastic | This type describes a hard plastic. It provides Roughness and Nd parameters. As Roughness is decreased, the plastic will become smoother. The Nd value controls the reflective response of the material; lower Nd values result in weaker frontal reflectivity. |
| Lacquer | This type is designed to create a material which resembles a lacquered surface, and is generally intended to be used in conjunction with a woodgrain texture. It provides a Finish type, of which there are five: Rubbed, Satin, Semigloss, Gloss, and Polished. |
| Liquid | This type simply produces a liquid material. It provides an Nd parameter, which is set to the refractive index of water (1.33) by default. Being a true dielectric material, this type should only be used on objects which have a closed volume. |
| Glass | This type is similar to the Liquid character, but it adds a Roughness parameter. Its Nd is set to the refractive index of standard glass (1.51) by default. As with Liquid materials, Glass materials should only be used on objects which have a closed volume. |
| SSS | This (SSS stands for Sub-Surface Scattering) type produces a material which possesses complex internal scattering effects (as this is a dielectric material, it should only be used with objects which have a closed volume). This type provides Roughness, Thickness, Density, and Asymmetry parameters. Thickness is used to scale the material based on the basic size of object on which it will be used; lower values will cause light rays to terminate closer to the surface of the object. Density describes how many particles per volume the material contains; this affects how light is scattered inside of the volume with more dense materials looking more opaque and less translucent. Asymmetry determines the back- or forward-scattering characteristics of the material; positive values cause light to bounce back toward its source, and vice versa for negative values. |
| SSS (Single Sided) | Single Sided SSS (or SSSSS, for purposes of this discussion) is a special Sub-Surface Scattering mode designed for use with single-face meshes; regular SSS is unsuitable for use with such geometry, due to its dielectric nature and the resultant requirement that it be used with an object which describes a closed volume. The SSSSS character provides Roughness, Thickness, and Asymmetry parameters. Thickness determines the theoretical thickness that Maxwell will give to single-face meshes such materials are applied to. Asymmetry, as with regular SSS materials, determines the back- or forward-scattering characteristics of the material. |
| Satin | This type has no parameters, and produces a material which behaves like satin cloth. |
| Velvet | This type has no parameters and produces a material which behaves like velvet cloth. |
| Complex IOR | This type has no properties other than Roughness; rather, its rendering characteristics depend on the selected Complex IOR file. See the IOR files page in the regular Maxwell Render documentation for information. |
| Emitter | This type produces an emitter material using the supplied Watts, Efficacy, Temperature and Roughness parameters. The amount of light the emitter material will output is determined by two parameters: Watts, which specifies how much electricity this emitter would consume, and Efficacy, which determines how efficiently the emitter converts that electricity into lumens (a unit of measure for light output). This allows you to set your emitters using real world values, often found on light manufactures websites. Temperature is optional: when disabled, the normal RGB color of the material will be used. As Roughness is reduced, a glass-type BSDF is mixed into the material, such that at a Roughness of 0.0 (and if the emitter is weak enough to reveal the glass-type BSDF), the material will resemble a light bulb. For more information on using emitter materials, see here. |
| IES Emitter | This type produces an emitter whose light source is an IES or LDT file. Intensity and Temperature parameters are provided, with Intensity adjusting the power output of the emitter. As with the standard Emitter Character, Temperature is optional, with the normal RGB color of the material being used when it is disabled. This type has no Roughness parameter, since IES/LDT emitter materials are intended to be used on geometry which has been hidden to the Maxwell camera. For more information on using IES emitters, see here. |
HDR Emitter | This type produces an emitter whose light source is an HDR, MXI, or EXR file. Intensity and Roughness parameters are provided, with Intensity adjusting the power output of the emitter. Similar to the regular Emitter character, as Roughness decreases, a glass-type BSDF is mixed into the material, allowing materials like an LCD screen to be simulated. For more information on using HDR emitters, see here. |
| Image Projector | This type is somewhat similar to an IES Emitter, except that its light source is an image file, which is projected outward from the geometry to which it is applied. It is best to use a sphere (group) for this purpose; the focus of the projection will be dependent upon the diameter of the sphere. For more information, see here. |
| Spotlight | Applied to a group (in order to achieve directionality), this type produces a virtual spotlight. |
Color
Where the Character determines the physical properties of the material, its Color determines its basic color.
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