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 Wizards

Maxwell Render comes with an easy step-by-step guide to create various types of common materials such as shiny wooden floor, plastics, clipmapped materials for leafs, and subsurface scattering materials. The Wizards will ask you for textures, bumps, reflectance maps and material values such as roughness and color.
You can use the Common Wizard to create five types of basic materials: Diffuse, Emitter, Metal, Dielectric, and Plastic. The SSS Converter serves as both a Wizard and a converter of measured SSS data into values used in the SSS parameters of the Material Editor. You can simply choose a material from the Presets dropdown list and click OK, or you can tick the Advanced Settings check box which allows you to alter the pre-set or create an entirely new SSS material if you have access to measured SSS data.

The MXM Gallery and Maxwell Resources

The Maxwell Render material gallery, called the MXM Gallery, is an online library with over 3.900 free Maxwell materials available for download. It is an online community where Maxwell Render users share materials for direct use in scenes and projects.

The MXM Gallery is part of the Maxwell Resources website at http://resources.maxwellrender.com where you can also find free and downloadable Maxwell skies, illumination pre-sets and HDRIs.

Direct connection between Maxwell Render and the MXM Gallery

The Maxwell Render 2 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.