First, I opened up the Material Editor in Max which displays a series of spheres, blank and ready to apply materials to. I selected the first sphere and selected an Anistrophic Shader which gives a slight metal look. I changed the Diffuse colour to Yellow and added more of a Specular level which gives the white highlight. I then applied this to a sphere in the viewport.
For another sphere, I created a Checker map by selecting the icon next to the diffuse colour and selecting the Checker map option. I then tiled the map to increase the amount of checks. I then dragged this onto another sphere in the viewport.
For my next sphere, I created a custom map by making a small image in photoshop with some blue brush marks on and saving it as a bitmap image. Then in Max, where before I selected the Checker map, I selected the Bitmap option and selected the file I had just created. Again, I tiled the map by 9.3 in one direction and 1.8 in the other. When dragging this onto the sphere this gave the blue on white stroke effect.
I also used this method of creating a map in photoshop for the planet sphere by adding some green and blue to an image and then using this as the map. By tiling the image 4.1 and 3 in the two axis, this gave an impression of a planet once dragged onto the sphere in the viewport.
Finally I applied the same method to a teapot and by tiling the map, I created a highly patterned shape! The image below shows the selection of materials and maps I used.
The other material I used was the Multi/Sub-Object Material. In this exercise I created a new teapot on the viewport and converted it to an editable poly. Then, using the element selection tool, I selected the 4 different components of the teapot and gave them a different Material ID (under Polygon Properties). Then, in the Material Editor, I selected the Standard Icon and chose the Multi/Sub-Object option. Then, under each ID, I added a different material or map, ending up with a multi-coloured teapot!
