New to Arnold. I downloaded it and installed MaxtoA and I can't find the shaders and materials

[rharker]

I was away from 3dsmax for a while and have just recently returned. I used to use Mental ray and I really liked it for photorealism. I installed MaxtoA on my machine that has 2024 3dsmax. I've looked at tutes on Arnold and have seen the amazing results but for the life of me I can't seem to figure how to simply use the material editor to use Arnold materials. I see only 22 materials in the editor. Surely there are more than 10 ... right? I don't have the time to make my own which I'm assuming that the 22 are templates of some sort in the Arnold material editor slots.

I have old projects that used to have mental ray materials that I need to redo the materials in Arnold but I don't know where the Arnold library is.

All help would be gladly appreciated.

[lee_griggs]

This is what I get. What do you see in the Slate Editor?

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_for_3ds_max_ax_shaders_html

[rharker]

Lee;

Thanks for this. Yes I see something like that. I guess I'm a bit in over my head with this. I simply want to have turnkey textures and materials and see them in the material browser as they would appear when I apply them. I guess I need help with the workflow. Are these the "premium material libraries for 3ds max"?

I really appreciate everything Autodesk does for the entire community.

Rob

[lee_griggs · Accepted solution]

Those shaders are there to get you started. Standard_surface/hair/volume will get you most of the way there. You will need to provide your own textures. Arnold has an image shader for this.

There is a basic library of different standard_surface presets available here (again you will need your own textures).

If you could tell us what sort of materials you are trying to achieve, maybe we can help you further.

If you are new to Arnold, then I would suggest going through some of the Learning Scenes (and tutorials) and

adjusting the materials/lighting etc there.

There are also these learning resources for Arnold for 3ds Max (MAXtoA).

Hope that helps.

[rharker]

Thanks for the help:) One last thing -- What are "the premium material libraries" ?

[rharker]

Lee;

I'm looking for a fine screen like cloth material, realistic aluminum, grassland ground cover, concrete and water surface and volume.

Best,

Rob

[lee_griggs]

>water surface and volume.

For water, just change the specular_ior to 1.33 from 1.5 (glass preset).

There is the standard_volume shader for volumes.

There is a fabric library from Flipped Normals here

https://flippednormals.com/product/flippednormals-fabrics-1

For aluminum and grassland it is about finding the best textures. There are many material/texture libraries that would have these such as textures.com, https://quixel.com/, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izAOLRPJDR8

[doug_bowker_3D]

I think what is being avoided in this conversation is: Why does Arnold not even have at least a dozen pre-set shaders already set up for the user?

I've been needing to use Arnold lately for some exports, as opposed to what I usually rely on, which is VRay, and was also hoping to find a little "more" to the Arnold shaders than what is included. When the OP asks about Premium Shaders, he's referring to what even the Autodesk scanline renderer eventually provided, right? Some useful Materials right out of the box so that you didn't have to start from a white sphere and tweak the dozens of settings just to get a wood floor, or brushed aluminum panel.

Why have a "built-in" renderer with almost no preset shaders to at least help you understand how they should be designed? And just because it's built in doesn't mean it's free, right? The cost is rolled into the overall package. I have to be honest that I haven't even turned it "on" much up until now, but I can't see ever having this be my go-to with what feels like so little being put into it as a system. While the final quality of light and rendering with Arnold fairs reasonably well in comparison (though it's slower), I have to say I have been especially surprised by just how little Arnold as a "system" gives you.

Take a look at the built-in VRay asset browser below. 5561 assets built-in, including 1,761 shaders!

Just a sampling of said shaders, all of which are easily altered or tweaked. See the list down the side of categories? How about Arnold/Autodesk provide even one of each of those to get people started?