Loading Materials From Connecter Into 3ds Max

Feature availability 🛈 
✔️ Personal ✔️ Suite 🧩 Supported 3ds Max Versions

IIn Connecter, you can easily reuse and apply materials in your 3ds Max scenes by using 3ds Max material libraries (.mat), 3ds Max scenes (.max) and MaterialX assets (.mtlx) as material sources.

While .mat and .mtlx assets are dedicated containers for materials, .max assets can also act as material containers by exposing the materials assigned to scene objects.

Most workflows for loading and applying materials are the same for all of these asset types, with any specific differences noted where relevant throughout this article.

Browsing and Selecting Materials in Connecter

Before loading materials into 3ds Max, use the “Material Previews” tabs in Connecter to browse and select the materials you want to use:

• The “Material Library Previews” and “Asset Materials” tabs show materials in .mat and .max assets, respectively.
• The “Material Browser” displays the structure of the currently selected material from those tabs, allowing you to explore and select sub-materials, texture maps, and other components.

 For full details, see Previewing and Browsing Materials.

Loading Materials From Material Libraries (.mat)

One way to add materials to your scene is by using 3ds Max material library (.mat) assets. To add one or more materials to your scene:

1. Start by selecting one or multiple material library assets or one or multiple materials contained in a selected library.
2. Load the materials in 3ds Max by:

• performing drag and drop of the selection in your scene in 3ds Max
  or
• right-click to open the context menu and select one of the available commands.

3. In 3ds Max, the integration will provide the workflows available for your current selection in the contextual menu that appears. Choose the desired workflow.

If a 3ds Max instance is running, Connecter uses it to process .mat assets in the background, read the metadata for the materials and generate preview thumbnails. Otherwise, a dedicated background instance of 3ds Max performs the same tasks.

Learn more about how Connecter uses dedicated instances to perform various tasks here.

Loading Single Material Workflow

When you drag and drop a material library containing only one material or a single material selected in Connecter, you can directly apply the material to a target object or selection in the scene:

• Assigning material to a target – Drag material in the viewport and drop it while hovering over a scene object. The “Assign Material to Target” option appears, showing the object name in brackets. Choosing the option applies the material to the object.
• Assigning material to a selection – When you drag and drop material in the viewport with an object selection in the scene, the “Assign Material to Selection” option is available. This option shows the number of objects in the selection in brackets.
• Choosing a material to replace – If the target object has Multi/Sub-Object material applied, an additional “Choose Material to Replace” option is available. Choosing that option opens a dialog. There, the integration visualizes all target objects’ material slots. To replace a material, click on its name in the list.

In addition to the drag-and-drop, you can also use the right-click context menus in the Assets View and the “Material Library Previews” and “Asset Materials” tabs in the Previews Panel to perform the same operations.

Context menu in the Assets View for a .mat asset.

Context menu in the “Material Library Previews” and “Asset Materials” tabs.

Loading Multiple Materials Workflow

When you drag and drop one material library containing multiple materials or multiple libraries from Connecter to your scene, the “Choose Materials to Load” option allows you to select one or multiple materials to use. The contextual menu shows relevant workflows depending on whether you select one or multiple materials.

To choose specific materials (from one material library containing multiple materials or multiple material libraries):

1. Choose the “Choose Materials to Load” command from the contextual menu.
2. Select one or multiple materials from the “Select Materials to Import” dialog.

1. Click the “Select” button.
2. Choose the desired contextual command from the context menu based on your selection.

NOTE: Previews are generated in real-time; a larger number of materials or more complex materials may require considerable time to load.

When you drag multiple materials you selected from a single material library in Connecter into the scene, only the “Load…” workflows are available.

In addition to the drag-and-drop, you can also use the “Choose Material to Load” command from the right-click context menu in the Assets View.

Context menu in the Assets View for a .mat asset.

Loading Materials From MaterialX Assets (.mtlx)

MaterialX assets (.mtlx) can also be used to load materials in 3ds Max scenes. You can use drag-and-drop and the right-click context menu in the Assets View”.

Context menu in the Assets View for a .mtlx asset.

Loading Materials From 3D Scenes (.max)

In addition to using material libraries (.mat), you can also load materials from 3ds Max scene files (.max) stored in your Connecter library.

When you select a single .max asset in Connecter, the “Asset Materials” tab becomes available in the Previews Panel. It shares a similar layout and browsing experience with the “Material Library Previews” tab and displays the materials assigned to objects in the scene. From here, you can:

• Browse and preview the materials.
• Select one or multiple materials.
• Drag and drop them into the 3ds Max viewport or the material editors.
  or
• Right-click to open the context menus.

The same workflows available for .mat assets apply here as well:

• If a single material is dropped, you can assign it to an object or selection, or load it into the material editors.
• If multiple materials are selected and dropped, the “Choose Materials to Load” dialog will appear, allowing you to select and load materials using the available load workflows.

Additionally, when you drag and drop one or more .max assets directly into the 3ds Max scene, the “Choose Materials to Load” workflow is triggered, just like when working with multiple .mat libraries.

NOTE: The “Asset Materials” tab shows only materials assigned to objects in the scene. Materials present only in the Compact Material Editor aren’t listed.

You can also use the context menus in the Assets View and the “Material Library Previews” and “Asset Materials” tabs in the Previews Panel to load materials from .max assets.

Context menu in the Assets View for a .max asset.

Context menu in the “Material Library Previews” and “Asset Materials” tabs.

Loading Мaterials Into the Material Editors

Rather than directly applying materials to objects, you can load them into the Compact Material Editor and the Slate Material Editor. This workflow lets you add materials to your scene and decide later how to apply them. You can do this by using the drag and drop interaction and the context menus in the Assets View and the “Material Library Previews” and “Asset Materials” tabs in the Previews Panel.

You can drag and drop materials from Connecter directly into both the Compact Material Editor and the Slate Material Editor:

• Compact Material Editor
  • Drop one or more materials to fill available sample slots in the Compact Material Editor (up to 24). Any materials already in the editor that aren’t used in the scene will be overwritten and lost. Excess materials beyond the available slots won't load.
  • Drop material into a sub-material slot of a Multi/Sub-Object material.
  • Drop material sub-element (texture map, bitmap) into any applicable material slot.
• Slate Material Editor
  • Drop a single material into an empty space or a material slot.
  • Drop multiple materials into empty space to create nodes for each.
  • Drag an individual material or material component (texture map) into a related slot.
    Check the list of specific limitations of this workflow here.

In addition to dropping materials directly into the material editors, you can also drop them into the 3ds Max viewport to access a contextual menu offering the following load options:

• Load All in Compact Material Editor: Loads the materials into the slots of the Compact Material Editor. Remember that only 24 material slots are available in the interface of the Compact Material Editor. If your selection contains more than 24 materials, the excess won’t load.

NOTE: This option will replace any existing materials loaded in the slots of the Compact Material Editor, so you may lose work-in-progress materials that haven’t yet been applied to objects in the scene.

• Load All in Slate Material Editor (Current View): This option loads the materials into the “Slate Material Editor”, using the current view.
• Load All in Slate Material Editor (New View): This option loads the materials into the Slate Material Editor, creating a new view to load them.
• Load as Material Library: Loads the materials to the scene’s “Temporary Library”.

When you have a single material dragged from Connecter, the “Load...” contextual commands are named slightly differently to match the single material selection, but have the same functionality as when there’s a multiselection:

These commands are available regardless of whether you select a single or multiple materials.

You can also use the context menus in the Assets View and the “Material Library Previews” and “Asset Materials” tabs in the Previews Panel to load materials.

Context menu in the Assets View for a .mat asset.

Context menu in the Assets View for a .max asset.

Context menu in the “Material Library Previews” and “Asset Materials” tabs.

Expert Mode Workflows

When “Expert Mode” is enabled in Connecter, the drag-and-drop and the context menu workflows will not show most of the dialogs speeding up your work. The settings are configured in the “Expert Mode Settings” dialog.

The “Expert Mode” button in Connecter.

Here are the settings that are used to configure these workflows:

• Apply Materials:
  • Sub-material ID – Replace a specific sub-material of a Multi/Sub-Object material.
  • Object – Replace the material of the objects.
• XRef Materials – XRefs materials from .max assets instead of copying them to the scene.
• Apply to Instances – Propagate the material to all instances of an object.

Learn more about “Expert Mode” here.

Additional Notes

• After the previews are loaded in Connecter, the metadata for the materials and the previews are cached for faster access later-even without having 3ds Max running.
• In Connecter Suite (team environments), the “Metadata Harvester” reads the metadata for the materials including the previews and it’s shared between all team members.