3D
objects may be cool, but they are nothing without a
good material to wrap them with. This tutorial will
introduce you to the material editor which provides
just about every feature you would ever want customize
for a material.
 Start
by firing up 3D Studio and creating an object that
you will later apply your texture too. Any object will
do such as a tetrahedron or cube. I made this lovely
warped blue thing (if you'd like to make something
like it, see the 2-Rail Shapes tutorial.
 Open
the Material Editor by pressing 'M.' Select one of
the six spheres that is closest to the color you want
to make your material.
 For
this tutorial we'll make a plastic-like texture. Choose
Phong under the Shader Basic Properties menu. Click
the 2-Sided check box and then edit the other options
to make the sphere looks somewhat like you want it.
You can change the colors around and play with the
Specular Highlights. Turn the Opacity down to 80% for
a nice touch (yeah, I know it says 90% in the image
to the left). The preview image will change a little
in the next steps, but you can see how mine looked
at the left.
 Go
down to the Maps and choose Reflection, set the opacity
to 70%. Click the map button and pick Swirl. I new
menu will pop up. Change the colors until your sphere
looks trippy again. Then click the drop-down menu on
the top of the material editor. Choose the top choice
which will take you back to the main material menu.
Go back down to the maps and make Refraction map that
is also set to 70% opacity and Swirl. Go play with
the options again until your sphere once again looks
spoonodelic. You really can't go wrong with any of
the options you choose on these maps, so I encourage
you to fully experiment.
 You
can add more maps if you want such as Glossiness, but
I didn't in my example. Once your material satisfies
you, click on your sphere and drag it onto your object.
The color will change to look like your material.
Now go to Rendering>Render. Click Render and you
will be looking at your new material in full glory.
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