544 Part III Modeling

Figure 18-24: The spaceship is trying to outrun the laser blasts.

Summary

This chapter presented particle systems and showed how you can use them. The chapter also took a close look at each system, including Spray, Snow, Super Spray, Blizzard, PArray, PCloud and Particle Flow. In this chapter, you

Learned about the various particle systems

Created a particle system for producing rain and snow

Used the Super Spray particle system

Worked with MetaParticles

Specified an object to use as a particle and an object to use as an emitter

Learned to use the PArray and PCloud particle systems

Used the Particle Age and Particle MBlur maps on particles

Learned to control and program the flow of particles with the Particle Flow window

In the next chapter, you start learning about materials and how to apply them using the Material Editor.

			P	A	R	T
Materials and Maps				IV
			In This Part
			Chapter 19
			Exploring the
			Material Editor
			Chapter 20
			Creating Simple
			Materials
			Chapter 21
			Creating Advanced
			Multi-Layer Materials
			Chapter 22
			Adding Material
			Details with Maps
			Chapter 23
			Controlling Mapping
			Coordinates

Exploring the

Material Editor

Materials are used to dress, color, and paint objects. Just as materials in real life can be described as scaly, soft, smooth,

opaque, or blue, materials applied to 3D objects can mimic properties such as color, texture, transparency, shininess, and so on. In this chapter, you learn the basics of working with materials and all the features of the Material Editor.

Understanding Material Properties

Before jumping into the Material Editor, let’s take a close look at the type of material properties that you will deal with. Understanding these properties will help you as you begin to create new materials.

Up until now, the only material property that has been applied to an object has been the default object color, randomly assigned by Max. The Material Editor can add a whole new level of realism using materials that simulate many different types of physical properties.

Note	Many of these material properties are not visible until the scene is
	rendered.

Colors

Color is probably the simplest material property and the easiest to identify. However, unlike the object color defined in the Create and Modify panels, there isn’t a single color swatch that controls an object’s color.

Consider a basket of shiny red apples. When you shine a bright blue spotlight on them, all the apples turn purple. So, even if the apples are assigned a red material, the final color in the image might be very different.

Within the Material Editor are several different color swatches that control different aspects of the object’s color. The following list describes the types of color swatches that are available for simple materials:

Ambient: Defines an overall background lighting that affects all objects in the scene, including the color of the object when it is in the shadows. This color can be locked to the Diffuse color so that they are changed together.

19C H A P T E R

In This Chapter

Understanding Material properties

Working with the

Material Editor

Using the

Material/Map Browser

Working with libraries of materials

Using the

Material/Map

Navigator

548 Part IV Materials and Maps

Diffuse: The surface color of the object surface in normal, full light. The normal color of an object is typically defined by its Diffuse color.

Specular: The color of the highlights where the light is focused on the surface of a shiny material.

Self-Illumination: The color that the object glows from within. This color takes over any shadows on the object.

Filter: The transmitted color caused by light shining through a transparent object.

Reflect: The color that is reflected by a raytrace material to other objects in the scene.

Luminosity: Causes an object to glow with the defined color. It is similar to SelfIllumination color, but can be independent of the Diffuse color.

If you ask someone the color of an object, he or she would respond by identifying the Diffuse color, but all these properties play an important part in bringing a sense of realism to the material. Try applying very different, bright materials to each of these color swatches and notice the results. This gives a sense of the contribution of each color.

Tip	For realistic materials, your choice of colors depends greatly on the scene lights. Indoor lights
	have a result different from an outdoor light like the sun. You can simulate objects in direct
	sunlight by giving their Specular color a yellow tint and their Ambient color a complemen-
	tary, dark, almost black or purple color. For indoor objects, make the Specular color bright
	white and use an Ambient color that is the same as the Diffuse color, only much darker.

Opacity and transparency

Opaque objects are objects that you cannot see through, such as rocks and trees. Transparent objects, on the other hand, are objects that you can see through, like glass and clear plastic. Max’s materials include several controls for adjusting these properties, including Opacity and several Transparency controls.

Opacity is the amount that an object refuses to allow light to pass through it. It is the opposite of transparency and is typically measured as a percentage. An object with 0 percent opacity is completely transparent, and an object with an opacity of 100 percent doesn’t let any light through.

Transparency is the amount of light that is allowed to pass through an object. Because this is the opposite of opacity, transparency can be defined by the opacity value. Several options enable you to control transparency, including Falloff, Amount, and Type. I discuss each of these options later in this chapter.

Reflection and refraction

A reflection is what you see when you look in the mirror. Shiny objects reflect their surroundings. By defining a material’s reflection values, you can control how much it reflects its surroundings. A mirror, for example, reflects everything, but a rock won’t reflect at all.

Refraction is the bending of light as it moves through a transparent material. The amount of refraction that a material produces is expressed as a value called the Index of Refraction. The Index of Refraction is the amount that light bends as it goes through a transparent object. For example, a diamond bends light more than a glass of water, so it has a higher Index of

Refraction value. The default Index of Refraction value is 1.0 for objects that don’t bend light at all. Water has a value of 1.3, glass a value of around 1.5, and solid crystal a value of around 2.0.