Introduction
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This makes it very easy and intuitive to create interesting and complex materials, such as a rust material showing through a car paint material, or applying a logo on top of a combination of different materials. A large library with thousands of free, ready-to-use materials is also available.
The Maxwell Material editor as it is seen in Studio and in the MXED (Material Editor standalone). In this example you can see a material composed by two different Layers (two completely different materials: a metal on Layer1 and a green glass on Layer2)
Editing Materials in plugins, Maxwell Studio, MXED
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All three approaches can be useful, even if your plugin fully supports all Maxwell material parameters. For example you may wish to quickly open and edit an MXM file (a Maxwell material file) found on your machine. For this, MXED can be very practical.
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Important: While the Material Editor is implemented inside all the compatible plugins, the interface and/or functionality can be different depending on each 3D platform, but the underlying principles remain the same. The information below shows the main areas of the material editor found in Maxwell Studio and MXED. In your 3D platform the interface may be slightly different. |
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MXED Interface
Main areas in the Maxwell Material Editor as seen in Studio and in the MXED (Material Editor standalone). In this example you can see a material composed by two different Layers (two completely different materials: a metal on Layer1 and a green glass on Layer2)
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.
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!mxed_layers_tree.jpg!
h6. {color:#808080}The Layers tree{color}
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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), and Maxwell Render will compute a preview of your material. During the preview, the green icon will be replaced by a red square icon, to indicate that it is calculating your preview.
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h6. {color:#808080}The Preview window{color}
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3. BSDF Properties
Contains the parameters to control the main physical behavior for each material component.
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h6. {color:#808080}The BSDF properties of a material{color}
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4. Surface Properties
Parameters to control the surface properties of a material (mainly the physical roughness or smoothness of the surface itself).
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h6. {color:#808080}The Surface properties of a material{color}
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5. Subsurface Properties
Parameters to control the internal behavior in case of a translucent material, what is known as Sub-Surface Scattering (SSS).
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h6. {color:#808080}The Subsurface properties of a material{color}
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