Versions Compared

Old Version 49

changes.mady.by.user Mihai Iliuta (Unlicensed)

Saved on

compared with

New Version 50

changes.mady.by.user Mihai Iliuta (Unlicensed)

Saved on

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

Introduction

The Material Editor (and the whole material system) is one of the most important elements of Maxwell Render™. It provides a powerful set of parameters for advanced editing of a Maxwell material.

...

The five main areas of the material editor are:

1. Layers Tree

Maxwell Render’s materials are made up of different “components” which are organized into folders (Layers). Each Layer can hold one or more BSDF components (BSDF is the main material definition), plus one Coating (varnish), one Emitter and/or one Displacement component.

Each folder represents a Layer, which are stacked vertically one on top of the other, similar to layers in a 2D image editing application. Please see the Stacking Layers section for more information about this. 

  

The Layers tree

2. Material Preview

This window allows you to get a quick preview of the material while you are editing it. When you are changing your material parameters, double-click in the preview sample image to refresh the preview with the new parameters, or click on the Refresh Preview button (green double-arrow icon). During the preview, the green icon will be replaced by a red square icon, to indicate that it is calculating your preview. 

...

Tip
  • Try to make your preview scenes as efficient as possible to get fast previews - for example a simple object and one emitter is usually enough.
  • Use approximately the same scale for your objects in the preview scenes compared to the scale of the objects you plan to use this material on to get a better idea of how it will look on those objects.
  • Create different scenes for different purposes - if you want to see better what a transparent material will look like for example, place something behind it to see how much it refracts the light.

 

 

 

3. BSDF Properties

Contains the parameters to control the main physical behavior for each material component.

...

The BSDF properties of a material

4. Surface Properties

Parameters to control the surface properties of a material (mainly the physical roughness or smoothness of the surface itself).

...

The Surface properties of a material

5. Subsurface Properties

Parameters to control the internal behavior in case of a translucent material, commonly referred to as Sub-Surface Scattering (SSS). 

Image Modified

 The Subsurface properties of a material

The Color Picker

When you click on a color chip, the Color Picker opens (in a separate window when using MXED standalone, or the Color Picker panel in Maxwell Studio).

Image Added

The Color Picker panel

To control the Hue: click and drag in the outer circle

To control the Saturation & Value: click and drag in the triangle

The two large color bars beneath the main color wheel let you compare the color that was selected when you clicked the color chip to open the Color Picker (right color) and the new color you've chosen (left color) in case you've edited the color. This lets you make fine adjustments to a color by seeing the old color next to it.

The Pipette icon Image Added lets you pick a color from anywhere in the MXED or Maxwell Studio UI. Click once to activated it, and then select a color.

The color chips on the right let you store your favorite colors. Simply drag & drop the color from one of the two large color bars to one of the color chips to store that color. Click on a color chip to load that color.

You have three color modes available for selecting colors: RGB, Hue Saturation Value (HSV) and xyz.