DirectX Manager Rollout (Legacy Direct3D Viewports)

Lets you select a DirectX viewport shader for viewing Direct3D hardware shaders.

• Material Editor > Most materials, when Direct3D is the active display driver > DirectX Manager rollout

DirectX shaders require the Direct3D graphics driver (the default driver is Nitrous Direct3D 11). With DirectX shading, materials in a viewport more accurately represent how the material will appear in another application, or on other hardware such as a game engine.

Note: When Direct3D is the active driver, this rollout appears for all Standard materials except DirectX Shader, Multi/Sub-Object, Shell, and XRef.

DirectX viewport shaders can be useful for previewing texture-baked materials.

Tip: To display a material using a DirectX shader, rather than 3ds Max software, choose Show Hardware Map In Viewport from the Show Standard/Hardware Map In Viewport flyout, then click this button to turn it on.

Hardware viewport rendering requires a video card that is compliant with DirectX 9.0c or a later version. See Viewport Display of Materials for more information.

3ds Max provides two DirectX shaders:

• LightMap shader
• Metal Bump shader

Note: This rollout does not appear for the Multi/Sub-Object and Shell materials, which are simply containers of other materials.

Interface

Save as .FX File

Click to display a Save Effect File dialog that lets you save the active material as an FX file.

Enable Plugin Material

Turn on to use the chosen DirectX shader in shaded viewports. Default=off.

When not enabled, viewports continue to use the default viewport (interactive) renderer (or the ActiveShade renderer, if that has been chosen).

This toggle is unavailable if no shader plug-in has been chosen from the drop-down list.

Plug-in drop-down list

Use the drop-down list to choose a DirectX viewport shader.