Select style in any of the following locations:
The main Material Editor control for shading materials in viewports, and toggling display of maps, is a flyout with four possible states:
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.
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.
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.
For a mapped material to display in viewports, the following conditions must be met:
The appearance of materials in viewports depends on which graphics driver you are using.
Provides a render-quality display environment that supports unlimited lights, soft shadows, screen-space ambient occlusion, tone-mapping, and high-quality transparency, along with progressive refinement of image quality when 3ds Max is not otherwise busy.
Supports both Standard and Hardware shading. Uses hardware support for the Standard Material, Arch & Design material, and Autodesk Materials.
Supports Diffuse, Specular, and Bump mapping, as well as Anisotropy and BRDF settings.
Supports only Standard shading. Only Diffuse maps appear in viewports. Cannot display shadows or ambient occlusion.
Here are some points to keep in mind: