Figure 1 Click for larger view

Figure 2 Click for larger view

Figure 3 Click for larger view

Figure 4 Click for larger view

Figure 5 Click for larger view

Figure 6 Click for larger view

Figure 7 Click for larger view

Figure 8 Click for larger view

Figure 9 Click for larger view

This tutorial requires 3D Studio MAX/Viz Version 2.x or 3.x and "Textures to The Max" add on.

TTM offers flexible materials using advanced edition and give you the power to customize them like you would with shaders. Using the materials of the libraries you can define your new 3D textures in no time once you know the way to proceed. This tutorials is an example of a basic flexible material.

Flexible materials can use "Blending" with JPG masks. A mask doesn't have to be only black and white but can also be a gray scale. Like with bump maps, the mask setting considers only the gray scale.

The use of blended materials permits extreme finesse of sub level masking and management. It enables the user to make some very flexible materials where you can set the color, bump, opacity, transparency, reflection, etc. of each individual masked material. Each part is thus independent; This lets you adjust and compose customizable textures to suit your most extreme or simplest needs.

In this tutorial we learn how to customize a floor settings for quick and easy customisation.

This paved material is subdivided in 3 parts:

- Dark paved
- Light paved
- Join

- Open the Material Manager roll out with and then the Material Browser with

- choose the option "Mtl Library" from "Browse from" setting (pic1).

Load the TTM_Floor.mat library. This library is located in your Matlibs subdir of 3DS Max. (Figure 1)

- Load the "kitchen Flexible 2" material. Then in the File area (bottom) => "Open" (Figure 2)

Now you can double click on the sample in the Material Editor to get a larger sample.(Figure 3) (tips: Drag a corner)

This material is composed by 3 parts, the 2 colored squares and the join. (Figure 4)

You're going to change each one of these colors.

The material is composed like this:

- Material 1 is named Join color
- Material 2 contain again 2 sub materials named:
Material 1: Dark Color
Material 2 Light Color

Each part has been named to help you in your customization. (Figure 4 shows the 3ds Material Navigator)
You can choose to navigate from the Material Navigator (last icon on the right: ), or directly from the Material Editor. Let's suppose you choose the Material Editor way (Figure 5).

Click the "Join color" and set a new color. In this example we choose here a dark color (brown or black).

- Once done, go back to the previous level with the "Go to Parent" icon. (Figure 6)

- You will access the Dark color and Light color. (Figure 7)

- Choose Dark color and choose a dark blue color.(Figure 8)

- Go back to previous level to set a light blue as the light color the same way. (Figure 6)

You should now have your new material.

You can save it in one of your own libraries.
It is not recommended that you save your new custom material inside the TTM_Floor.mat directory or folder. Instead create a new directory or folder and save the new material there. This is to help avoid corrupting the custom settings of the TTM_Floor.mat library by mistake.

(Figure 9) - You can assign it to your viewport selection and render your scene: (Figure 8)
OK you're now ready to browse the libraries with the special TTM Material Navigator and to get more custom materials. We hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Free update libraries of volume 1.0 are already in the download section of textures3d.com.