Week 3 

Materials

This week in tutorial we learnt how to use the material editor which I am able to use but there was one technique that I was unfamiliar with which was the material ID which allows the user to change the material of  each polygon rather than the whole shape. We were also shown how to map images using Photoshop and then import the image into 3D Studio Max using the material editor onto a plane.

Material Editor
Material editor allows the user to change the surface state of a shape to any image they want to make a scene look more realistic in an animation, this is very simple to achieve.

Create a sphere and open the material editor and select the first grey circle, then select the grey box next to diffuse and select either bitmap to import an image you've made or select one of the default materials. I chose a bitmap image of wood boards which I then dragged onto the sphere, by clicking on show standard map in view port the material is shown on the sphere without being rendered.

Material ID - Kettle
This specific technique I was unfamiliar with but it was very easy to understand, I firstly created a tea pot from the standard primitives, and changed to editable poly. I then chose the polygon tool and selected part of the teapot and set the ID to 1 and the group to 1, then set the ID for the lid as 2 and the group to 2, and did the same for ID 3 and 4 to the main part of the teapot and handle.

Once the material ID's had been made I opened up the material editor and clicked standard to open up the browser and selected multi/sub object. This then brought me to the material ID menu and I was able to change each material standard to either a bitmap or a default material and drag across to the correct ID on the teapot.

Material Editor - Chrome
When adding a chrome material to a shape, there is an unusual method but it looks very realistic once rendered. I created the image below by making a torus knot from the extended primitives, then by using the material editor I chose the antistrophic shader as this is ideal for metal materials, and changed the diffuse button to dark blue, and making sure the high specular is set to approximately 60 and the high anastrophy to approximately 80. Once these settings are in place I selected reflection further down the panel, and then imported a bitmap image of a new York scene, which will now be added to the reflective map channel, I then dragged the material to the torus not and rendered.

Final render of chrome Torus knot

Shaders

There are other shaders which can be used in the material editor other than reflection to create realistic objects.

Anastropic

The anastropic shader is ideal for metal materials, because it changes the shape of the specular from round to elongated via the anastrophy spinner. You can also change the direction of the shine. It works very well for hair where the shaft of the hair catches the light.

Blinn

This is the standard Max default - A basic shader which can be used for most materials, it has a no anastrophy.

 Metal

This was in use until the Anastropic shader was introduced, it is more simple in the way it works, there is a dimple in the specular graph, which means that the shader is useful for dull metal materials such as brushed stainless steel.

Muli-layer

This is very good for metalic objects, particularly cars, as it has two layers of specularity. You can also change the colours of the specular layer to add subtle tones.