Useful tools for working with materials

The Material Browser

The Material Browser allows you to browse the Maxwell materials available on your system. It works similar to Windows Explorer, with a folder tree-view on the left side and the contents of the folder displayed on the right side.
The Material Browser is available from your 3D application using the corresponding plug-in, or from Studio as an independent panel. The Material Browser shows a small preview of every MXM file found in the material database.

The Material Assistants

Maxwell Render comes with some simplified material assistants that help you to quickly configure some commonly used materials. Choose first a category such as glass, metal, translucent, opaque and the material assistant will help you create perfectly optimised materials for your scene in just seconds.
The assistants, under the hood, make use of the same Maxwell material shader, but only show a few parameters to make things easier for you. If you want to check how these material are actually made, you can always click the button to "Convert to Advanced" and you will see how they translate to layers and BSDFs. The available types are the following:

• AGS (from Architectural Glass Solution): it generates a glass without refractions (so you only have reflections) that renders very fast; it's good for glasses in a frame.
• Opaque: simple opaque material that allows controlling the color and shininess of the material with very few parameters.
• Transparent: you can generate transparent materials like glass, frosted glass, water, ice, diamond, emerald,...
• Metal: shiny or rough aluminium, 24K jewlery gold, mirror,...
• Translucent: materials with subsurface scattering (SSS) can be tricky to setup; this assistant tries to make it easier; you have some presets like red wax, silicone gel, milk, honey,...
• Car Paint: an easy way to create a good looking car paint with flakes, top coat, etc.
• Hair: this material is meant to work with our hair primitive which is used with tools like Hair and Fur, etc.
• TableBrdf: this is a connexion to use MERL Materials database (TableBRDF)
• XRite AxF Material: this is a connection to use X-Rite AxF Materials

The MXM Gallery and Maxwell Resources

The Maxwell Render material gallery, called the MXM Gallery, is an online library with over 5.900 free Maxwell materials available for download. It is an online community where Maxwell Render users share materials for direct use in scenes and projects.

A direct connection between Maxwell Render and the MXM Gallery

The Maxwell Render Material Browser has a direct connection with the MXM Gallery. Open the Web tab to search for materials in the online MXM Gallery. Type in a word to do a search, select the material you need, and drag it over the Material Editor, in the Materials List Panel or over the desired object to import the material into your scene.

The material will be downloaded to your computer, unzipped and placed either in the current project folder (the folder where the MXS file is located), or in the folder you have specified in Preferences> Materials> MXM gallery. In the search results, you can click on a column to sort the materials by that column, and you can double-click on the material thumbnail to display a larger version of it. Please make sure you have written your login/ password information in Preferences> Materials> MXM gallery to be able to log in and download materials.