Materials and Mapping Tutorials > Introduction to Materials and Mapping >
Add Materials to the Chairs: Propagating Materials to Instanced Objects

Many architectural models include instanced objects, such as furniture or lighting fixtures. This lesson demonstrates a Material Editor option that improves ease of use when you texture instanced objects.

Set up the lesson:

- Open med_villa_mat_propagate.max.

  This is the same scene you have been working on, but the Material Editor option Propagate Materials To Instances has been turned off.

Unhide the lounge chairs:

1. If the Layers toolbar isn’t visible, right-click the gray area to the right of the main toolbar, and choose Layers to display this toolbar.
2. Open the drop-down list of layers on the toolbar, and click (the Hidden icon) by the Chairs layer to unhide the Chairs layer.

   Six lounge chairs are now visible on the terrace of the villa.

Apply the railings material to the chair piping:

The chairs are instances. They contain two elements: a yellow frame and a red set of cushions (these colors are just 3ds Max Design object colors: The chairs don’t have materials yet).

1. In the Camera-Terrace viewport, click to select the frame of the nearest chair, Chair Struc02.
2. In the Slate Material Editor, click the Blue Railings material node to make it active (you might have to navigate in the active View so you can see this node again), and then click (Assign Material To Selection).

   The chair’s frame turns blue, but the other chairs are not affected.

3. Press Ctrl+Z to undo the material assignment.
4. From the Slate Material Editor menu, choose Options Propagate Materials To Instances.
5. Click (Assign Material To Selection) once again.

   This time, all the chair frames turn blue at once.

   If you work with instanced objects, you want to make sure that Propagate Materials To Instances is turned on. (When it is on, there is a check mark next to it on the menu.)

Create a material for the chair fabric:

1. In the Slate Material Editor, drag an Arch & Design material from the Browser into the active View, and double-click the new material node so you can see its parameters. Name this material Fabric.
2. On the Templates rollout, open the drop-down list of templates, and choose Matte Finish.
3. Assign a Bitmap to the Diffuse Color Map component of the Fabric material node.

   3ds Max Design opens a file dialog. In the dialog, navigate to the \sceneassets\images folder, choose the file fabric-stripes.jpg, then click Open.

   Fabric pattern for the chairs

4. Click the new Bitmap node to make it active, then on the Slate Material Editor toolbar, click (Show Shaded Material In Viewport) to turn it on. (If you use a legacy viewport driver, this button's tooltip reads, "Show Standard Map In Viewport.")
5. In the Camera-Terrace viewport, click to select the fabric of the nearest chair, Chair Fab02.
6. In the Slate Material Editor, click the Fabric material node to make it active, then on the toolbar click (Assign Material To Selection).

   All the chairs now have the fabric material applied.

7. On the Modify panel, choose UVW Map from the Modifier List drop-down list.

   Turn off Real-World Map Size.

8. In the UVW Map modifier Parameters rollout Alignment group, choose Y as the active axis.
9. In the Slate Material Editor, double-click the Bitmap node so you can see its parameters. On the Coordinates rollout, turn off Use Real-World scale, then change the W angle to 90.0 (degrees).

   Now the all the chairs are striped lengthwise.

Save your work:

- Save the scene as my_villa_deck_furniture.max.

Summary

You can see a final version of the scene by opening med-villa-mat_done.max.

A rendering of the villa after you have completed the tutorial

This tutorial has shown you how to:

- Apply simple Autodesk Materials and adjust their settings
- Apply a Multi/Sub-Object material and use its material IDs to apply sub-materials to objects that have multiple material IDs
- Add maps to Arch & Design materials
- Use the UVW Map or MapScaler modifiers to set mapping coordinates for objects that don’t have default coordinates
- Use the Propagate Materials To Instances option when assigning materials to instanced objects

The final rendering for this tutorial still lacks a little drama, but you will correct that when you use this villa model again in some of the lessons on lighting, which follow. Some of the rendering tutorials also use the villa model to demonstrate how you can further enhance the realism of a scene.