We said earlier that colors and also sometimes maps could define materials. Right now you are going to concentrate on the basics of materials, the areas that define a material without using maps. Standard materials are defined by what we call shaders. Shaders have a common set of parameters and they also have there own specific set of parameters that help define areas of a Standard material. There are seven different types of shaders that you can choose from, each with its own special use.

Depending on shader type, you could have up to five different rollouts to assist in creating a material of your choice: Basic Parameters, Extended Parameters, Super Sampling, Maps, and Dynamic Properties. We will touch on the Maps rollout later in this chapter. For now, just know that when we choose a shader type to define our Standard material, a majority of the settings in that particular shader can be found in the Maps rollout. So be sure to look beyond the basic colors and settings to the maps you can add.

Each shader has its own settings as well. First, let’s go over the common parameters found for each shader in Table 8.5. All of these parameters are toggled either on or off. You are either using them or you are not.

Let’s see how these parameters effect an object:

1.  Reset MAX. Create a teapot in the perspective view.

2.  With the teapot object selected, open up the Material Editor.

3.  Apply the first material to your object and render your scene.

4.  Click Wire and render your scene again. Your teapot now renders in a wireframe mode.

	NOTE Don’t trust how the viewport portrays objects with materials; always render if you want to see how they are actually going to look.

5.  Check the 2-Sided option and render the scene again. You can now see the opposite sides of our object.

6.  Uncheck 2-Sided and Wire and check the Faceted box. Notice that the teapot looks the way it did originally, yet the sample sphere in the Material Editor looks different.

7.  Render the scene. Look at the difference in our object. It’s not nice and smooth like the original; it’s faceted. This demonstrates why you must be aware of the difference between the viewport and the render image.

Again, these four parameters are common to every shader.

Blinn Shader

The Blinn shader holds the most commonly used settings (you can see the Blinn parameters in Figure 8.9). It works very well if you are trying to achieve a round, subtle highlight. It is worth knowing that the older Phong shader has the same settings as the Blinn. The only difference between the two shaders are that the highlights when using the Blinn shader appear much softer then they do with the Phong shader.

FIGURE 8.9  Blinn shader basic parameters

Table 8.6 explains each of the settings under the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout. Many of these are common to more than one type of shader, so we’ll refer back to this table from time to time.

A few background words about the lighting models that 3D Studio MAX uses—that is, what do the Ambient, Diffuse, and Specular qualities mean? A good way to experience what these abstract lighting qualities mean is to play with changing these characteristics and see the effect on a sample sphere in the Material Editor. Change the Specular Level and Glossiness, too, to see the effect in a larger preview window. The shaders each mathematically define what a material is differently. (There’s a real-world history behind these mathematical calculations: several of the shaders’ names are the names of the people who came up with the algorithms.)

Let’s take a look at some of these settings by changing them and seeing their results.

1.  Create a teapot in the perspective view.

2.  Apply Material #1 to it (this should be a reddish color). We’ll change the red to a white.

3.  Click the red color square next to the Diffuse slot. This will bring up the Color Selector dialog box (see Figure 8.10).

FIGURE 8.10  This color picker comes up when you click a color swatch in the Material Editor.

4.  Experiment with changing the color values. Mix the settings until you get a whitish color. Don’t be afraid to use the Reset button if you want to start over.

NOTE RGB stands for red, green, and blue. Use this to mix the different levels of colors to create a specific color. HSV stands for hue, saturation, and value. Hue sets the color, saturation sets the intensity of that color, and value sets the tint or brightness of the color. Each color system can completely describe all colors; you can mix and match between systems for convenience, however. You can also click in the color field on the left side of the color picker to choose colors. (There’s more detail on these “color models” in Chapter 10.)

5.  Your sample slot is now white, as is your teapot. Render your scene.

© 2000, Frol (selection, edition, publication)