To Manage a Material with the Material Explorer Material Panel

To change a material assignment, do one of the following:

• Drag the material’s thumbnail or icon (to the left of its name) from the Material Explorer Material panel onto an object in a viewport.
• Select multiple objects, and then drag the material’s thumbnail or icon (to the left of its name) from the Material Explorer Material panel onto one of the objects.

  3ds Max asks whether you want to assign the material to the object or to the entire selection.

• Drag the material’s thumbnail or icon (to the left of its name) from the Material Explorer Material panel onto the name of a geometry object in the Scene Explorer.

To change a map assignment:

• Drag the map’s thumbnail or icon (to the left of its name) from one entry in the Material Explorer to another map thumbnail or icon in the Material Explorer (either panel).

  3ds Max opens a Copy (Instance) Map dialog so you can choose whether to swap the two maps, or make the updated map either a copy or an instance of the original.

To edit a material:

• Drag the material’s thumbnail or icon (to the left of its name) to an unused sample slot in the Material Editor.

  If the material is already in a sample slot, 3ds Max won’t let you drop it on the new sample slot.