Cineversity

I had a question regarding the Material Previews available in the Material Editor. I noticed that the “Flat 2D” option is always greyed out so I’m using the Plane option instead. Does anyone know if the Flat 2D option is available under certain circumstances (I noticed that it’s greyed out in the C4D Documentation as well). The Plane option is OK, but it applies lighting which sometimes makes the preview difficult to see. I’m wondering what the purpose of the Flat 2D preview option is if it doesn’t seem to be available, (it seems to me that I’ve used it in the past?)

Hey Bartpop.  Flat 2D is only available when you’re looking at a shader(like the gradient or noise for example, which it defaults to) or an image.

Not sure exactly why it’s not available but I suppose because in order to display the preview cinema needs an actual object to render the material on.  When it’s a single 2D image it isn’t necessary.  You might using the Cube or Plane and then shift click and drag in the material preview to rotate the object so the lighting isn’t causing a big specular highlight.

Thanks Andrew, that’s good info. I had tried to get the Flat 2D preview on a Shader MATERIAL but couldn’t get that working, but your post jogged my brain into trying it on a Shader CHANNEL and that did the trick.

Ah yes, it is confusing.  Not the shaders in the MM ‘Create’ menu.

I found a way to create a useful preview for my purposes. I created a material preview scene that uses 100% ambient lighting and dropped it into my /Preferenes/Maxon/Cinema4D/library/materialpreview folder. Works like a charm.

Here’s the material preview file if anyone would like to make use of it:

Ambient Material Preview

Great idea!