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[Pipann]

Hello! It's been ages since I was here. Shockingly, I have a very similar question now from when I did way back. Also been a long time since I last used WW, and I'm probably rusty, but at the behest of a commissioner and good friend, I decided to dive back into it.

I have 3ds Max 2023 now and it uses the Arnold renderer. The material editor has been changed up a lot as a result. I'd like to know where I should place the phong map in order to get $phong to work.

Here is the new editor -- I prefer compact, so sue me :D

[Joris Ceoen]

$phong is determined by settings inside the Standard Material node that contains all the information (both the default settings from 3DS Max as normal, as well as all the WW-Source specific stuff from Wall Worm once you've added material and texture parameters, which you can do by going to Wall Worm -> Wall Worm Materials -> Give Obj+Tex WW Materials). Please note that Wall Worm will automatically do this if you hit the Export VTF's button from the Wall Worm Model Tools floatable menu).

To simply add $phong to your .vmt parameters, you can switch the Shader Basic Parameters at the top of the material node from Blinn to Phong and you're set:


If you need more specific $phong settings, you have a dialogue box just for that a bit below, among many other settings:


Please note that for $phong to work, you need to have a roughness/specular mask baked into the alpha channel of the bumpmap. If not, it needs to be added to the diffuse's alpha channel, for which you have the options as seen in the image above :) (Wall Worm may or may not automatically detect this and already adjust the options for you, but I don't know for sure. I always use the normal alpha channel). For $phong settings on brush materials or for using $phongexponenttexture I don't know the specific details. Best is that you ask Shawn, the author of the plugin, for more information.

Good luck, and let us know if you need more help or information!

[Pipann]

Hi Joris, thank you for the comprehensive post, but I think you missed my point. Perhaps I wasn't really clear enough.

Since Max 2021, the material editor traded Standard Material with Physical Material and Arnold, (as stated here in their documentation https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Standard-Legacy-Materials-don-t-appear-in-3ds-Max-2021.html ) and it no longer has the the old material options available (in 2023, the version I use now, standard material seems to be completely removed, as I'm unable to find it when trying Autodesk's solution). Using the 'Give Obj/Tex WW Materials' option did not seem to change anything for me in the material editor either.

However, your answer still provides a solution. I'll start using the normal map's alpha and add the phong parameters manually in the vmt's afterwards. Thank you! ;D

[Joris Ceoen]

Hi Joris, thank you for the comprehensive post, but I think you missed my point. Perhaps I wasn't really clear enough.

Since Max 2021, the material editor traded Standard Material with Physical Material and Arnold, (as stated here in their documentation https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Standard-Legacy-Materials-don-t-appear-in-3ds-Max-2021.html ) and it no longer has the the old material options available (in 2023, the version I use now, standard material seems to be completely removed, as I'm unable to find it when trying Autodesk's solution). Using the 'Give Obj/Tex WW Materials' option did not seem to change anything for me in the material editor either.

However, your answer still provides a solution. I'll start using the normal map's alpha and add the phong parameters manually in the vmt's afterwards. Thank you! ;D

I somehow missed the point of Arnold as a renderer, however I'm pretty sure they haven't removed the Standard material. What they did do is make Arnold the default renderer for Max as opposed to the Scanline renderer. If you aren't seeing the 'old' materials and maps inside your material editor, go to the render settings and change the renderer from Arnold to Scanline. Now they should re-appear, but ever since Max 2023 they're now put under a different rollout just below Arnold (I think) and it's now called 'Standard (Legacy)'.

There's no way they would ever remove Scanline and the standard material node, but they are trying to push people to use Arnold for everything now to get them to learn it. It's a great renderer (and required for AO-baking), but for most Source-uses you just want to use the legacy standard node.

Also note that the article you linked to states that Arnold itself is not compatible with the old legacy materials, but that doesn't mean they were removed. Now you just use Scanline with the legacy stuff, and Arnold exclusively with Arnold.

[Pipann]

Ahh, I see! Thank you for the explanation!

I will definitely check it out if I decide to work more with Source again. Thank you for all your help!

[wallworm]

Thanks for helping out Joris :)

For Standard Material you need Scanline as Joris said.

Do share what project you are doing to come back to Source and WW! :)