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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 Maxwell Material Editor offers real-world parameters that define the materials in a natural and accurate way. It is possible to create Sub-Surface Scattering effects (see below), thin layers, light-emitting materials and advanced stacked materials. A material in Maxwell Render can have several layers, one stacked above the other much like layers in an image editing application, and each layer represents a material itself (that could be composed by several components).

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.

 

Editing Materials in plugins, Maxwell Studio, MXED

You can create and edit materials in three different ways:

  • directly in your host application using the controls provided by the plugin. Most of our plugins have all the material parameters available to you.
  • with Maxwell Studio - the standalone scene creation and editing tool included with your installation of Maxwell.
  • with MXED - the standalone Maxwell material editor also included with your Maxwell installation.

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.

 

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.

 

MXED Interface

 

Main areas in the Maxwell Material Editor as seen in Studio and in the MXED (Material Editor standalone)

  

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. 

  

The Preview window

Right-click in the Preview to show a menu with the following options:

  • Scene selections: You can choose a different preview scene from the list, load the Next/Previous scenes in the list or load an MXS to use as a preview scene. The list is populated from the MXS files found in the "preview" folder found in the Maxwell Render install folder. To learn how to create your own preview scenes, see Creating your own preview scenes.
  • Previews: While experimenting with different material settings, the Previews option allows you to store a material "snapshot" of your current settings. Use Store to store the current settings and Remove to remove the currently displayed preview. You can use the white back/forward arrows beneath the preview window to quickly jump between different stored previews.
  • Export...: Allows you to export your current settings to an MXM file.
  • Options: Set the different preview options - Sampling Level, Time, Scale and Quality.

Real-time material editing

Pressing the lock icon in the lower right of the Preview will enable real-time editing of all material settings - the preview will update as soon as you change a setting. Unlock it to return to normal mode - you have to double-click the Refresh Preview button for the preview to refresh.

 

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). 

 The Subsurface properties of a material


 

 

 

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