Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, 2nd Edition

4.5 Multiple materials on single objects

While the process of applying multiple materials to single objects is not specifically a mental ray issue, it is important enough to cover two of the common techniques in this book to provide you with productive tools in your day-to-day workflow. These techniques are especially useful for Revit users because, by default, Revit tends to apply one material per object.

First, let’s define a potential problem. Say your client decides that a shower curtain in a bathroom scene should be red and blue horizontal stripes instead of the current solid red material. In 3ds Max, it is very inefficient to have a simple object like a shower curtain be made up of three or four different objects. Having multiple objects ...