Viewport Display of Materials

Viewports can display materials in either a Shaded or a Realistic style, with or without the maps they use.

Left: Map shown on sample cube

Right: Map shown in a viewport

The main Material Editor control for shading materials in viewports, and toggling display of maps, is a flyout with four possible states:

Note: If you are using a legacy viewport driver instead of Nitrous, these options read "Standard" and "Hardware" rather than "Shaded" and "Realistic," as they did in versions of 3ds Max prior to 3ds Max 2012.
Tip: Choosing the alternate flyout button does not toggle the button state. For example, if Show Shaded Material In Viewport is off for the active material, choosing Show Realistic Material In Viewport simply switches the material to Realistic display mode; it does not turn on the maps. You must turn on the button explicitly to see maps in viewports.

The Slate Material Editor indicates that map display is on with a diagonal red shape in node title bars, the Material/Map Browser, and the Navigator. See Indicators for Show Map In Viewport.

This control is also available at the map level, where it functions only as a toggle for the option set at the material level, and applies only to the active map. So, for example, you could enable viewport display of the bump map while disabling display of the diffuse map, although both would appear in the final rendered image. Changing the setting at the material level overrides any map-level settings.

Note: If the toggle is unavailable at a map level, it means viewport display of the map is unsupported. One possible reason is that the map is nested too deep in the material tree.

The following image, taken from a 3ds Max viewport, shows two spheres to which are applied two copies of an Arch & Design material with identical settings, including texture-mapped diffuse color and bump maps, a high reflectivity level, and a Checker map applied to the Anisotropy channel. The scene also includes a Daylight system with mr Sun and Sky, with the Environment Map set to mr Physical Sky. The only difference is that the material on the left-hand sphere is set to Show Shaded Material In Viewport, while the material on the right-hand sphere is set to Show Realistic Material In Viewport. The latter shows the bump map, reflection of the sky, and the checkered anisotropy in the specular highlight. When rendered, the spheres appear identical, and look similar to the right-hand sphere.

When you save a material in a library, the state of this button is also saved. You can drag mapped materials from the Material Library in the Browser over objects in your scene, and have the mapped material appear in the viewports. (For maps to display properly, primitive objects must have Generate Mapping Coords. turned on; mesh objects must have a mapping modifier applied.)

You can toggle Show Shaded/Realistic Material In Viewport for all materials by choosing Views menu Show Materials in Viewport As. These controls are also available from the Compact Material Editor Material menu and (while using Nitrous) the Shading viewport label menu.

3D procedural maps can display in viewports, except for the Particle Age and Particle MBlur maps.

Setting Up Mapped Materials

For a mapped material to display in viewports, the following conditions must be met:

Procedures

To view maps interactively:

  1. Select an object.
  2. In the object's parameters, make sure that Generate Mapping Coords. is on. (If this option isn't enabled, the object can't be mapped.)

    If the object type does not have a mapping coordinates checkbox, apply a UVW Map modifier.

  3. In the Material Editor, apply the mapped material to the object.
  4. Turn on (Show Shaded Material In Viewport), or with a Standard, Arch & Design, or Autodesk material, choose and then turn on (Show Realistic Material In Viewport).

    The map appears on objects assigned the material in all shaded viewports. Now when you adjust a map, the viewports update to display the adjustments.

To turn off interactive texture display:

Material Display and Viewport Drivers

The appearance of materials in viewports depends on which graphics driver you are using.

Notes

Here are some points to keep in mind:

  • Standard display with the Direct3D driver applies only to the Standard material, Arch & Design material, and Autodesk Materials; the driver still uses software to render all other materials.
  • The Show options do not apply to XRef materials, including materials from XRef objects and XRef scenes
  • Displaying mapped materials in a viewport can slow performance. If you don't need to view the map, turn off its viewport display.
  • When the Direct3D driver displays a 3D map without hardware shading, the viewport display is not necessarily accurate. To improve viewport display, in the Compact Material Editor you can use the Material Editor Options dialog to set the Render Sample Size to equal a main dimension of the object you are applying the map to. For example, if you want to use the Cellular map on a sphere with a radius of 20, change Render Sample Size from 100 (the default) to 20.
Parent topic: Designing Materials