Using Material Library / Maya

Verge3D material library is a collection of ready-to-use materials which you can assign to your Maya models. Below is the description of a recommended workflow on how to install and use these materials efficiently.

Featured materials from Verge3D material library
Featured materials from Verge3D material library.

Installing

Material library is available in Soft8Soft store in the form of Maya Essential Material Pack.

Simply unzip the archive with a library pack to any folder on your computer. Inside this folder there are mb files (one file per material). The textures used in the materials are located in the material_maps folder. The folder environments contains 3 variants of HDR images that you can use for the environment (each variant comes in 3 resolutions: 1k, 2k and 4k).

Adding Materials to Project

In order to use a library material in a project, invoke the File → Import in the Hypershade editor window:

Import material in Hypershade editor

Navigate to the library folder, select mb file, specify Load no references in Load Settings, then click Import:

Maya import window

Once a material is imported, you should be able to assign it to a model. Select a model, click using right mouse button, then Assign Existing Material → Name:

Assigning material in Maya

The last step is to delete unused reference to the material library:

Remove unused references in Maya

Setting up the Environment

Eevee-based materials require the environment to be set up, otherwise the materials will look dark and non-reflective. The environment is already set up in Verge3D's default cube project which you can use as a basis for your own app.

Alternatively, you can configure the environment from scratch as shown in this video tutorial. You can use either of HDR textures in the environments folder of a material pack for this purpose.

UV Mapping

Most materials in the library require models to be UV-mapped. Consider unwrapping your models for best results.

Relocating Textures to App Folder

For the sake of integrity of your application (which is important if you're transferring your project sources to a third party), you can save the textures used by the imported materials in the app folder as described below.

  1. Open the File Path Editor in Maya:
    2. Running Maya's file path editor
  2. Find textures which are used by the imported material. Copy these textures from the material_maps to the application folder:
    3. Maya File Path Editor
  3. Select these materials in the editor, then click on the Repath Files button. A new dialog appears, specify New Path to the application directory, enable Repath Currently Resolved Files option, then click Repath:
    4. Repath textures in Maya

You can check the integrity of your application by moving its folder to another location in your file system. Open the mb (or ma) file and make sure no errors with missing assets are generated.

See Also

Familiarize yourself with the material system used in Verge3D by reading the Materials guide.

Got Questions?

Feel free to ask on the forums!