To Create and Play Animated Material Previews

You can create a preview movie of an animated material. Use Make Preview in the Compact Material Editor, or Render Map in the Slate Material Editor.

The preview movie is saved in the \previews subdirectory in a file called _medit.avi. Each time you create a new preview, the Compact Material Editor overwrites this file. To keep a preview movie on hand, save it under a different name by using the Save Preview button on the same flyout as Make Preview.

To create a preview of an animated material in the Compact Material Editor:

1. In the Compact Material Editor, choose (Make Preview) from the flyout.
2. In the Create Material Preview dialog, set the preview conditions you want, and then click OK.

   The Material Editor creates the preview.

To create a material preview in the Slate Material Editor:

1. Click a map node to highlight it.
2. Do one of the following:
   • Right-click the node and choose Render Map.
   • Choose Utilities Menu Render Map.
3. On the Render Map dialog, set the preview conditions you want, and then click Render.

To play back a preview of an animated material, do one of the following:

• In the Compact Material Editor, choose (Play Preview) from the flyout.
• If you created the preview with the Slate Material Editor, then in the main 3ds Max window, choose Rendering View Image File.

3ds Max starts the Windows Media Player with the active preview movie loaded. Click Play to view the preview movie.

To save a preview movie under a different name:

1. In the Compact Material Editor, choose (Save Preview) from the flyout.

   The Material Editor displays a file save dialog.

2. Enter a new name for the preview, and then click OK.