Material Menu

The Material menu lets you create a material, choose an existing material, or assign a material to objects.

Some menu choices are also accessible from toolbar or navigation buttons, so this topic shows the button alternative along with the menu choice.

Interface

Pick from Object

After you choose this option, 3ds Max displays an eyedropper cursor. Click an object in a viewport to display its material in the current View.

Get from Selected
Gets the materials from objects selected in the scene, and displays them in the active View.
Get All Scene Materials

Displays all scene materials in the current View.

Highlight Assets in ATS Dialog
Opens the Asset Tracking dialog, which shows the status of external files used by Bitmaps. If you click this option for a Bitmap node, the associated file is highlighted in the Asset Tracking dialog.

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Assign Material to Selection

Assigns the current material to all objects in the current selection.

Note: You can also drag from the material node’s output socket and drop it on an object or a selection of objects. See To apply a material to objects in a scene.

Keyboard shortcut: A

Put Material to Scene
This is available only when you have a copy of a material that has the same name as a material applied to objects, and you have edited the copy to change the properties of the material. Choosing Put Material To Scene updates the objects that have the older material applied to them.
Export as XMSL File

Opens a file dialog that lets you export the current material to a MetaSL (XMSL) file. This option is enabled only when you have selected a Map To Material Conversion node: Typically, this node will be the parent of a shader tree whose children are MetaSL shaders.

Parent topic: Slate Material Editor Menu Bar