Supported Materials And Maps

Supported Materials

• Krakatoa MX provides support for several 3ds Max materials, but it uses a limited number of their parameters.
• Krakatoa MX evaluates the 3ds Max materials in the 3ds Max Shading Context, but only uses the following for per-particle channels data:

Material Channel	Krakatoa Particle Channel	Notes
Diffuse Color	Color
Opacity	Density
Self-Illumination	Emission
Filter Color	Absorption	Taken as White-FilterColor
Glossines	SpecularPower
Specular Level	SpecularLevel

• In the case of complex materials with sub-materials like Blend, Composite etc, only the top material’s Color and Opacity will be used.

Standard Material Support in Krakatoa…

• Only the Phong shading mode of the Standard Material is fully supported as source of Color, Emission, Absorption, Density, SpecularPower and SpecularLevel particle channels data.
• See here for more details.

Krakatoa Material

• Krakatoa MX provides a simplified dedicated Material which can be used as the source of only the Color, Emission, Absorption and Density channels.
• It operates under the hood as a internal MagmaFlow generator and is thus not compatible with renderers other than Krakatoa.
• Click here to learn more about the Krakatoa Material…

Architectural Materials Support…

• The 3ds Max Architectural material is largely supported as a source of particle color.
• Due to the facts that most of the controls in the Architectural Material affect the Diffuse color or Opacity output and that Krakatoa is simply evaluating the material As Is, a significant number of features are supported indirectly by Krakatoa.
• This material cannot be used as a source of per-particle SpecularPower, SpecularLevel, Emission and Absorption channels data though.
• Click here to learn more about the Architectural Material in Krakatoa…

Blend Material Support…

• The 3ds Max Blend Material is used to blend two sub-materials using a control map or a single float value.
• While the sub-materials can be any of the supported by Krakatoa materials described on this page, no per-particle channels data will be acquired from them.
• Click here to learn more about the Blend Material in Krakatoa…

Composite Material Support…

• The 3ds Max Composite Material is used to combine up to 10 materials using their Alpha output value and various composite modes.
• Krakatoa provides limited support for this material as it respects the Color and Density values generated from the Diffuse and Opacity (Alpha) channels but cannot acquire per-particle channels data like Emission, Absorption, SpecularLevel and SpecularPower.
• Click here to learn more about the Compositve Material in Krakatoa…

Ink ‘n Paint Material

• The 3ds Max Ink ‘n Paint Material can be used only as Diffuse Color source.
• No Ink or Paint shading can be performed because the material depends on polygon rendering data to determine the shading and Krakatoa cannot provide the necessary data.

Matte/Shadow Material

• The 3ds Max Matte/Shadow Material returns a black Particle Color and, if Opaque Alpha is unchecked, also produces Particle Density of 0.
• If you have to use it on particles, at least check the Opaque Alpha option to produce black particles with valid Density.
• Note that if a Matte/Shadow Material is assigned to a Matte Object listed in a Matte Named Selection Set, it also won’t produce correct matting unless the Opaque Alpha option is checked since the Krakatoa Matte Objects Rasterizer respects the Alpha mapping of Matte Objects!

Morpher Material

• Only the Diffuse Color and Opacity of the Base Material of a 3ds Max Morpher Material will be respected by Krakatoa.

Multi/Sub-Object Material…

• The Multi/Sub-Object Material can be used by Krakatoa for assigning different materials to particles with different Material IDs.
• Only the Diffuse and Opacity channels of the corresponding Sub-Material will be used as Color and Density sources.
• No per-particle data like Emission, Absorption, SpecularPower or SpecularLevel will be acquired from the sub-material.
• Click here to learn more. about the Multi/Sub-Object Materail in Krakatoa…

Raytrace Material Support

• The 3ds Max Raytrace Material cannot be used by Krakatoa for raytracing, but it is somewhat supported as source of Color and Density data.
• The Luminosity and Extra Lighting channels affect the Diffuse Color output, and the Fluorescence affects the Extra Lighting.
• The Transparency value controls the Alpha which in turn affects the Density of the particles.

Shell Material

• Only the Diffuse Color and Opacity of the Sub-Material assigned to the slot set to Render will be used both in the viewports and in the renderer.
• No per-particle channels will be populated using the sub-material.

Top/Bottom Material Support…

• The Top/Bottom Material is supported to blend two materials’ Diffuse Colors and Opacity channels based only on the World orientation of the Particle’s Normal channel (because the Krakatoa Normal Channel is converted to World space at render time).
• The Blend and Position parameters are supported. No other sub-object parameters will be acquired.
• Click here to learn more about the Top/Bottom Material in Krakatoa…

Texture Map Support

• Krakatoa MX supports most standard 3ds Max 2D and 3D maps and some 3rd party maps both as part of material shading trees and as TextureMap inputs in the Magma Modifier.
• Both Explicit UVW Mapping Coordinates and Object Space mapping are supported.
• When UVW Mapping Coordinates are required by the map, the particles being mapped must provide the corresponding Mapping Channel.

Bitmap Texture Map

• The BitmapTexture map can be used to map image files onto particles.

Procedural 2D Maps

• Procedural 2D maps like Checker, Gradient etc. are supported similar to the Bitmap texture map.

Procedural 3D Maps

• Procedural 3D maps like Cellular, Noise etc. are supported and can use Object, World or Explicit 3D UVW coordinates.

Camera Map Per Pixel

• The CameraMapPerPixel map can be used to project textures onto particles using a Camera object.
• It is also supported in the viewport by the PRT Loader, PRT Volume and PRT FumeFX objects for interactive tweaking.

Falloff Map

• The Falloff map provides scene node-dependent modes using Cameras and Objects as reference which requires special handling.
• Most Falloff Map modes are supported by Krakatoa MX both at Material level and as part of a Krakatoa Channels Modifier input node.

Vertex Color Map

• The VertexColor map can be used to convert either the Color Channel or any of the 99 Mapping Channels to a color value to be used at any level of the Material’s shader tree.