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The Houdini Engine for 3ds Max plugin can automatically generate materials within 3ds Max based on the Houdini material found in the asset.
Generating Materials ¶
The plugin can attempt to generate standard materials in 3ds Max with similar properties as the material applied in Houdini. This is done by creating a standard material, reading the parameter values on the associated SHOP or VOP node, and then assigning those values to the material.
The follow table will list the associated parameter that the plugin will look for in order to assign a value to the indicated 3ds Max standard material parameter.
3ds Max Standard Material Parameter |
Houdini Parameter(s) |
|---|---|
Opacity |
|
Ambient |
|
Diffuse |
|
Specular |
|
Texture |
|
Note
Texture images must be saved as persistent images on disk. Texture images will be saved in the \<ProjectDirectory\>\\sceneassets\\images folder.
Material Attribute ¶
It is also possible to assign an already existing 3ds Max material to an object
via the hemax_material attribute.
For example, if you were to fracture an object, you might want to assign an
inside and outside material procedurally via this attribute. Since it is a
detail attribute, however, you can only assign one material. This is mainly a
side effect of how 3ds Max works. In this example, you would want to assign the
material, and then use the hemax_matid primitive attribute to set the material
ID on each face.
The hemax_material attribute has a special syntax for specifying the
material that you want to assign:
<PathToMatFile>:<MaterialName>
For example, if you had a material library named RockMaterials., you might specify:
C:\Users\me\my_materials\RockMaterials.mat:RockInside
Note
The plugin will first lookup in the material in the scene, so it is possible to simply specify the name of the material in the hemax_material attribute, and if it exists in the scene, the plugin will apply that material. Otherwise, if the specified string on the hemax_material attribute does not refer to a material in the scene, it will then use the syntax described above to look up the material on disk.