Mapping controls the surface appearance of objects. In this lesson, you use the Material Editor to map the objects in the scene so that they look more like the solar system.

Open Seasons01.max.

Press M to open the Material Editor:

In the currently selected material, click the Diffuse color swatch.
In the Color Selector dialog box, select a bright red.
Click Close. The Diffuse color turns red:

    

Drag copies of the Diffuse color swatch onto the Ambient and Specular color swatches.

    

In the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout, set Self-Illumination to 50.
The material sample sphere turns bright red.
Name the material Red Circles:

   

Press H to open the Select Objects dialog box.
Select the Earth's Orbit, the Moon's Orbit, and the Equator. Then click Select:

  

In the Material Editor, click Assign Material to Selection.
In the viewports, the three circles turn red:

Drag the sample slot of the Red Circles onto the slot next to it.
In the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout, change the color of the Diffuse color swatch to bright blue.
Drag a copy the Diffuse color swatch onto the Ambient and the Specular color swatches.
The material sample sphere turns bright blue.
Name the new material Blue Poles:

       

Assign the Blue Pole material to the Earth's Poles:

  

Select an available sample slot and name the material Earth.
In the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout, click the small gray button next to the Diffuse color swatch:

In the Material/Map Browser, choose Bitmap and click OK:

Navigate to the Earth.jpg map.

(Note: If you do not have the CD or a download of the map, right-click on the image below to save it to disk, or make a screen capture using Print Screen or other screen capture software.)

Photo courtesy of NASA

Select the map and click OK. The map appears on the material sample sphere.
Drag the material from the sample sphere to the Earth.
Click Show Map in viewport. The map appears on the Earth.

  

In the same way, create a mapped material for the Moon:

Photo courtesy of NASA

Use Moon.jpg for the map and name the material Moon.
Apply the material to the Moon:

  

Render the scene to see how it looks:

In the Material Editor, activate an unused sample slot.
Click Get Material. In the Material/Map Browser, choose the Noise map type:

Save your work as Seasons02.max.

Next: Animating the Solar System