Using the Material Palette

Palette.jpg (15208 bytes)

Materials can be viewed as "paint" for 3D objects. A material is made of a number of attributes including color, transparency, specularity (shininess), and a texture (bitmap).

Click Button-RollDown.gif (95 bytes) to show the Material Palette panel. Click Button-RollUp.gif (93 bytes) to hide the panel.

The Material Palette is made up of three primary sub-panes, the material preview pane, the texture preview pane, and the color preview pane.

As you change material attributes, the material preview is updated to show you how your material will look when applied to an object.

Clicking on the Texture Pane displays a list of alternate textures from the active Texture Library.

Clicking on the color displays a color selection window. Note that objects with textures applied usually look best with a white background.

A material is applied to an object by using the Paint, Oriented Fill or Fill tools.

Button-TextureFlipHorizontal.gif (908 bytes) flips the texture horizontally.

Button-TextureFlipVertical.gif (911 bytes) flips the texture vertically.

Button-WrapCylinder.gif (919 bytes) applies the texture to the preview object with a cylindrical wrap.

Button-WrapSphere.gif (917 bytes) applies the texture to the preview object with a spherical wrap.

Button-WrapFlat.gif (912 bytes) applies the texture to the preview object with a flat wrap.

Button-Tile.gif (918 bytes) tiles the texture as it is applied, otherwise the texture will be stretched to fit. This applies only to flat wraps.

Button-PreviewPrimitive.gif (687 bytes) displays a window that allows you to select an alternate preview object.

Button-DeleteSmall.gif (918 bytes) resets the material palette defaults.

Ambient, Specular, Emissive and Transparency attributes may also be set.

Click the Texture Library's Button-RollDown.gif (95 bytes) to show the Texture Library sub-panel. Click Button-RollUp.gif (93 bytes) to hide the panel.