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The main tab of the Maxwell Material node contains the following global properties.

• Load MXM: load the material description from the specified .mxm file. The SHOP node is renamed to the name of the loaded material.
• Reload: updates the parameters from the .mxm file. This button is useful if the .mxm file has changed outside Houdini (for example edited with the Material Editor).
• Save MXM: exports the material to the given .mxm file.

• Show Preview: calls Mxed to calculate preview of the material by the current settings. The preview image is displayed in MPlay.
• Edit in Material Editor: opens the Material Editor (Mxed) with the current parameters which provides a user-friendly interface to edit the material. After the material is saved and the editor is closed, the plug-in reloads the material parameters automatically.

• Dispersion: enables / disables the dispersion calculations. Dispersion is the effect which can be seen when different wavelengths of light are refracted at slightly different angles as they pass through a material. The amount of dispersion can be controlled with the Abbe parameter of the BSDF component.
• Shadow: enables / disables the shadow catcher, used for compositing purposes.
• Matte: enables / disables matte properties for this material.
• Material ID Color: specifies color identifier for the material, useful for compositing.

• Global Bump Mapping: enables using global bump map which will affect the whole material, alongside the bump of each individual BSDF.
• Bump Strength: specifies the strength of the bumps.
• Bump Texture: specifies a bump texture where brighter values will create bumps on the surface and darker values will create indents. A color map can be used as a bump map but only the grayscale information of the map will be used.
• Use Bump Texture As Normal Map: if checked, the given bump texture will be used as a global normal map. A normal map has the advantage specifying an angle, or the direction of the bumps while bump map can simulate only the up / down direction.

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Material layers are displayed on the Layers tab. Each layer represents a complete material, which contains several BSDF, coatings, displacement or emitter components. The different layers in a material are stacked from bottom to top. The top layers conceal the bottom layers which means that the order of the layers in the material arrangement can change the material’s look and behavior. The order of the layers can be controlled with the Up Move Front and Down Move Back buttons.

• Enabled: enables / disables visibility of the layer.
• Name: name of the layer component.
• Opacity: specifies the value of the opacity.
• Mask: specifies a grayscale texture mask to control the visibility of the layer. Black stands for zero opacity, and white stands for full opacity.
• Layer BlendingBlend Mode: specifies how to blend the current layer with the layers below.
• Normal: the layer will act like a „solid” layer, and it will be stacked as a real material on top of another layer. For example if the opacity is set to 100, no layers underneath this layer will be visible.
• Additive: multiplies the properties of the layer components (such as color, reflectance of any BSDFs, etc.) with the layers underneath. This means that even if the layer’s opacity is set to 100, the layers underneath will still be visible.

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 You can add as many BSDF components to a layer as you like with a multilist control of the layer interface.

• Enabled: enables / disables visibility of the component.
• Name: name of the BSDF component.

The BSDF properties are divided into 3 distinct areas:

1. BSDF Properties: handles all settings related to the material as a whole.
2. Surface Properties: handles all settings related to the surface of the material, such as the surface roughness and bump.
3. Subsurface Properties: controls the effect of translucency or light that is scattered beneath the surface.

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Contrary to bump / normal maps which simulate grooves on the surface, the displacement component simulates real geometry at render time as if it was actually modeled. This feature is very useful for adding fine detail to a mesh which would otherwise be difficult or impossible to model. Maxwell supports both 1D vertical displacement (also known and Height Map) and 3D displacement (also known as Vector Displacement).

• Enabled: enables the displacement component.
  
• Texture: 8, 16 or 32-bit grayscale texture to define the geometric detail.
• Height: specifies the maximum distance displaced on the base mesh. This value needs to be greater or less than zero for displacement to appear. The white of the displacement map will be raised to the given height. The displacement height can be set in percentage or absolute units.
• Percentage (%): relative to the longest edge of the associated object’s bounding box. Using relative height is useful to preserve the same displacement height when scaling the object.
• Centimeters (cm): absolute height to displace regardless of the object dimensions.
• Offset: specifies which gray level in the texture represents zero displacement.
• Subdivision defines surface accuracy, ability and response to detail, independent of texture resolution. It is a measure of the subdivision level of the mesh. Higher value means more accurate result, but also longer render time because of the more render time subdivision of the mesh.
• Adaptive: when this option is checked always the most detailed displacement will be created that a given texture can provide.
• Smoothing: controls whether the displaced surface should render smoothly (continuous shading) or render faceted. This flag is independent of the object’s smoothing angle setting.
• Type: type of displacement method.Type: defines the type of the displacement method.
  • On The Fly: unique displacement technology that allows you to create virtually unlimited detail while using very little extra memory. Recommended for very fine, smaller/medium displacements and when the RAM consumption needs to be prioritized.
  • Pretessellated: 1D height map displacement. Recommended for general purposes when the RAM in the system is not a limitation, and it renders much faster than the On The Fly method.
  • Vector: an RGB color map displacement holding information for both the X, Y and Z coordinates of each point. As points can be displaced in the three axis, this type provides a surface with richer detail than simply 2D displacement that uses black & white height maps.
• Subdivision defines surface accuracy, ability and response to detail, independent of texture resolution. It is a measure of the subdivision level of the mesh. Higher value means more accurate result, but also longer render time because of the more render time subdivision of the mesh.
• Adaptive: when this option is checked always the most detailed displacement will be created that a given texture can provide.
  
• Offset: specifies which gray level in the texture represents zero displacement.
• Smoothing: controls whether the displaced surface should render smoothly (continuous shading) or render faceted. This flag is independent of the object’s smoothing angle setting.
• UV Interpolation:defines the interpolation method of the UV coordinates for the new geometry.
  
  • None: no boundary interpolation behavior occurs.
  • Edges: all the boundary edge-chains are sharp creases; boundary vertices are not affected.
  • Edges and Corners: all the boundary edge-chains are sharp creases and boundary vertices with exactly two incident edges are sharp corners.
  • Sharp: smooths only near vertices that are not at a discontinuous boundary. All vertices on a discontinuous boundary are subdivided with a sharp rule (interpolated through).
    
• Height: specifies the maximum distance displaced on the base mesh. This value needs to be greater or less than zero for displacement to appear. The white of the displacement map will be raised to the given height. The displacement height can be set in percentage or absolute units.
• Percentage (%): relative to the longest edge of the associated object’s bounding box. Using relative height is useful to preserve the same displacement height when scaling the object.
• Centimeters (cm): absolute height to displace regardless of the object dimensions.
• Preset: TODO
• Transform:  TODO
• RGB Mapping: TODO
• Scale: controls the overall size of the displacement for vector displacement methods.