Materials Window

The material swatches that are available in the drawing are displayed at the top of the Materials window. When you select a material swatch, the properties for the material become active in the Material window sections.

The sections of the Materials window display different property settings.

• Available Materials in Drawing. Displays material swatch previews and tool buttons.
• Nested Map Navigation. Displays the active material and the materials in the mapping tree.
• Material Editor. Displays the material types, templates, and properties.
• Maps. Displays the map channels, map type selection, tool buttons, and provides access to procedural map controls.
• Advanced Lighting Override. (Available under the Realistic and Realistic Metal material type.) Sets parameters that affect the rendering of the material when it is lit by photometric lights.
• Material Scaling & Tiling. Specifies a map channel or synchronizes a scaling and tiling factor to be shared across all map levels. This section is used for 2D (Texture map, Checker, Gradient Ramp, Tiles) maps and map channels (diffuse, bump, opacity, reflection).
• Material Offset & Preview. Specifies the Offset & Preview properties of maps on materials.

As you modify the settings, they are saved with the material swatch. The changes are displayed in the material swatch preview. When you render the drawing again, the changes occur on any objects that have the changed material.

You can change the name of the material and the material preview shape. Right-click the preview swatch, and click Edit Name and Description. By holding down the first button below the swatch preview window, a set of fly out buttons display different geometry options for the material preview.