Using Superellipse PBR Textures in 3ds Max + Arnold

This guide will walk you through installing the Superellipse PBR Importer plugin and loading your texture packs into 3ds Max as fully wired Arnold OpenPBR Materials — in seconds.

What You'll Need

Before getting started, make sure you have the following:

• 3ds Max 2025 or newer
• Arnold for 3ds Max (MAXtoA) installed and active
• Windows only
• The Superellipse PBR Importer for 3ds Max. Download it here

Tested on 3ds Max 2027 and Arnold (MAXtoA) 5.9. Earlier versions should work but have not been formally verified.

Why the Plugin Exists

3ds Max has no native PBR importer for Arnold. When you purchase a Superellipse texture pack, you receive a folder of image maps — basecolor, roughness, metallic, normal, AO, height, and more. Without the plugin, combining those into a properly configured Arnold OpenPBR Material means manually creating bitmap shaders, setting colour spaces on every map, wiring each connection, and configuring channels like clearcoat, transmission, and displacement from scratch.

The Superellipse PBR Importer reduces the entire process to two clicks: open the menu, select a folder, done.

Step 1 — Install the Plugin

Make sure 3ds Max is open before running the installer.

Download and unzip the file. Inside you will find Superellipse_PBR_Importer_3dsMax.mzp — drag this directly into any 3ds Max viewport. Alternatively, go to Scripting > Run Script and select the .mzp file.

An install confirmation dialog will appear. Click OK.

The plugin copies itself to your 3ds Max startup scripts folder automatically and registers the Superellipse menu entry. No manual folder navigation is required.

Restart 3ds Max. When it reopens, a Superellipse entry will appear in the main menu bar containing options for all supported renderers.

Updating to a newer version: drag the new .mzp file into the viewport and click OK — it overwrites the previous version automatically. Restart 3ds Max and you are on the latest version.

Note: The Superellipse menu typically appears around 30 seconds into startup, after 3ds Max has finished loading its menu system. This is normal behaviour for MaxScript-based plugins.

Step 2 — Import a Material

Make sure Arnold is set as your active renderer in Render Setup (F10) before importing. The material preview sphere uses the active renderer — if Arnold is not active, previews will not reflect the true material appearance.

In 3ds Max, go to Superellipse > Arnold - Import Material.

A folder picker will appear. Navigate to your Superellipse texture folder — the one containing the image files directly inside it — and select it. The plugin remembers your last used location between sessions, so subsequent imports are even faster.

After selecting a folder, you have two additional optons. 

1. Assign material to the currently selected object
2. Enabling displacement

Press Import - The import runs immediately. Give it a few seconds to import. A confirmation dialog appears when the material is ready, showing how many maps were found and how many channels were wired.

The material is named automatically from the folder name. For example, Boucle_Fabric_Willow_4K becomes Boucle Fabric Willow 4K — Superellipse.

That's it! The material is fully mapped and ready to use.

Step 3 — Applying the Material

Once imported, open the Slate Material Editor (press M). The material appears as a node set on the canvas and is also listed under Scene Materials in the left panel once if it was assigned to an object at import.

To apply the material to an object if not done via the import option:

1. Select the target object in the 3ds Max viewport
2. In the Slate Material Editor, right-click the material node and choose Assign Material to Selection

All texture nodes in the graph use the SE_ prefix for easy identification — SE_BaseColor, SE_Roughness, SE_Normal, and so on.

Finding a material again later: In the Slate Material Editor, expand Scene Materials on the left panel. Alternatively, search "Super" in the top search bar to find already imported materials.

Every material currently assigned to at least one object is listed there. Double-click any entry to open its node graph for editing.

Important Note: If a material has not yet been assigned to any object, it will only appear as a node set on the Slate canvas and will not show in Scene Materials. Assign it to at least one object to keep it permanently accessible. (For batch imports this is handled automatically — each material is assigned to a hidden holder object behind the scenes.)

Step 4 — Adjusting Tiling

In 3ds Max, tiling is controlled at the object level rather than inside the material. To adjust how the texture tiles across a surface:

1. Select the object
2. Go to the Modify panel (the arched curve icon 2nd from the left)
3. Click the Modifier List dropdown and choose UVW Map
4. Set the projection type — eg. Box works for most simple interior block objects
5. Adjust the Length, Width, and Height values to control tiling scale

One UVW Map modifier controls the scale of all maps in the material simultaneously.

Step 5 — Batch Import

To import multiple materials at once, use Superellipse > Arnold - Import Batch.

It is advised to clear the Node graph in the Material Slate Editor before and after batch import to avoid a busy Slate Editor UI. If a large batch is imported, simply Ctrl + A, delete the nodes in the editor. This removes them from the canvas view only — the materials remain accessible via Scene Materials.

A brief note will appear first, reminding you to select the parent folder — not one of the texture set folders inside it. For example, if your sets are at Textures\Fabric\Boucle_4K\ and Textures\Fabric\Tweed_4K\, select the Fabric folder.

To select the parent folder: either click it once to highlight it and press Select Folder, or navigate inside it so no subfolder is selected and press Select Folder from within it.

The plugin scans one level of subfolders and presents a scrollable checklist of everything it finds. Tick the sets you want — use Select All or Deselect All for large libraries — then click Import Selected.

The options dialog also lets you enable displacement across all imported sets simultaneously.

A summary dialog confirms how many materials were created and flags any that failed. Duplicate imports get the next number appended to avoid overwriting ie. Wood 4K (2)

How imported materials are stored and found

Each imported material is assigned to its own hidden sphere, all parented under a single object called Superellipse Materials in the scene tree. This keeps every material listed in the Scene Materials panel at all times, giving you a persistent material tray without cluttering your working scene.

To use a material: open the Slate Material Editor (M), expand Scene Materials on the left panel, or search "Super". Drag any material onto your object in the main 3ds Max viewport. Alternatively right click, Assign to object. 

Double clicking the preview sphere will bring it onto the node viewport for refinement if needed. Be mindful large graphs may overlap, so working with a clean Material Slate is always advisable.

Housekeeping Note: Keep your unzipped texture folders in a permanent location before importing — the material references wherever the files are at the time of import, so moving them afterwards will disconnect the textures.

Tips & Best Practices

Enabling Displacement

Arnold handles displacement natively through the material — no additional modifier is required on the object.

Glass Materials

For glass and transparent materials, the plugin automatically wires the transmission weight map and transmission colour map into Arnold's Transmission slots. The transmission weight is set to 1.0 so the map takes full effect.

Glass materials are highly dependent on other scene variables such as lighting, geometry, and render settings, so it's worthwhile getting familiar with the options below.

Glass colour and depth

Glass colour and depth are controlled directly on the OpenPBR Material node. In the Slate Material Editor, double-click the node to open its parameters. In the Transmission section, adjust:

• • Color — the tint of the glass. The transmission colour map is wired here automatically
  • Depth — controls how dense the colour appears over distance. A smaller value makes the glass darker and more saturated; a larger value makes it lighter and clearer. Defaults to 0.4cm — increase to match the approximate physical thickness of your glass object in the scene

Smoked and milky glass

For smoked, frosted, or milky glass with a subsurface scatter colour map present, the plugin wires it directly into Arnold's Sub Surface Scattering section and sets sensible defaults:

• • SSS colour map — wired automatically
  • Radius — 0.4 (default starting point)
  • Radius Scale — adjust to control how deep the scatter effect penetrates the surface

These are starting points. SSS materials require artistic judgement — open the OpenPBR Material node and adjust Radius and Radius Scale to suit the specific material and scene scale.

Anisotropy - (Metals, Carbon Fibre, Car paint, Fabric threads etc.)

Anisotropy controls the directional stretching of reflections — common in brushed metals, carbon fibre, and fabrics with intricate thread level reflections.

Full sets (weight + angle maps)
When both an anisotropic weight map and an anisotropic angle map are present, both are wired automatically with the maps driving the respective parameter value.

Angle Map Only
Some Superellipse texture sets include only a single anisotropy angle map. In this case the plugin sets a default anisotropy weight of 0.8. To adjust, open the material and locate the Base Anisotropy value. Increase toward 1.0 for a stronger effect, decrease toward 0 to soften it.

Clearcoat - weight 0.9 by default — (Carbon Fiber, Laquered wood, Car paint etc). Applied when clearcoat colour or roughness maps are found but no weight map. Gives a visible clearcoat effect out of the box. Adjust in the Material node under the "Coat" tab if needed.

Normal Strength — If the normal map is too dominant for your scene, you can alter the intensity of the height simulation by lowering the "Multiply" value on the SE_Normal_Bump node.

Render Preview Accuracy

The material preview sphere in the Slate Material Editor uses whichever renderer is currently active in Render Setup (F10). For accurate Arnold previews, make sure Arnold is the active production renderer. If you switch to V-Ray, Corona, or Scanline, the preview will show an approximation that does not reflect how the OpenPBR Material will actually render.

To check your active renderer: open Render Setup (F10) — the title bar shows the renderer name, for example Render Setup: Arnold.

Supported Maps

The plugin automatically detects and wires the following maps when present in your texture folder:

Base Color, Roughness, Metallic, Normal, Ambient Occlusion, Height / Displacement, Opacity, Emission, Specular, Anisotropic Weight, Clearcoat Weight, Clearcoat Colour, Clearcoat Roughness, Transmission Weight, Transmission Colour, Subsurface Weight, Subsurface Colour

Note: Anisotropic Angle maps are detected but not wired — Arnold's OpenPBR Material does not have an anisotropy rotation slot. Anisotropy direction is controlled by the UV tangent flow of the mesh.

Troubleshooting

The Superellipse menu does not appear after restart — allow up to 60 seconds for 3ds Max to fully load its menu system. If it is still missing, open the MAXScript Listener (F11) and run SE_EnsureMenu() — this re-registers the menu callback and the entry will appear on the next restart. If the problem persists, re-run the .mzp installer.

Arnold - Import Material is greyed out or shows an error — Arnold (MAXtoA) must be installed and set as the active renderer. Open Render Setup (F10), go to Common > Assign Renderer, and set Production to Arnold. Restart 3ds Max after switching renderers.

No maps found — confirm that you selected the folder containing the texture images directly inside it, not a parent folder above them. The MAXScript Listener (F11) will show which files were scanned and which were skipped, including the full folder path used.

Unzipped folder not detected — some unzip tools create an extra folder level inside the download, for example FolderName\FolderName\images.png instead of FolderName\images.png. The plugin detects and resolves this automatically when the inner folder name matches the outer one. If the names differ, navigate one level deeper when selecting the folder.

Textures appear missing after import — the material references the original location of your texture folder. If you have moved, renamed, or deleted that folder since importing, 3ds Max will no longer find the image maps. Re-run the plugin pointing to the new folder location to reimport fresh.

Material is not visible in Scene Materials — Scene Materials only shows materials currently assigned to at least one object. For single imports, assign the material to an object and it will appear. For batch imports, the holder sphere handles this automatically.

Displacement has no effect — check that the displacement amount on the OpenPBR Material node is not zero. If you imported without ticking Enable Displacement, the map is wired but the amount is set to 0. Set it to a small positive value such as 0.1 to activate it.

Normal map looks inverted — bumps appear as dents — this is unlikely with standard Superellipse texture sets, as the plugin applies the correct green channel orientation for 3ds Max / Arnold automatically. If it occurs with a non-standard set, open the SE_NormalMod node and toggle the Flip Green option.

Normal map preview appears blue or cyan — this is expected. The Normal Bump node displays raw normal map data as colour in the Slate preview. The render result will be correct.

Colours look washed out or roughness looks wrong — this is a colour space issue. The plugin sets colour spaces automatically on all imported materials. If setting up a material manually: Base Colour, Emission, Transmission Colour, and Subsurface Colour maps should use automatic / sRGB; all other maps should use gamma 1.0 (Linear).

Glass colour has no effect — check the Transmission Depth value on the OpenPBR Material node. A value of 0 means no colour absorption — increase it to match the approximate physical thickness of your glass object. The plugin defaults to 0.4 cm.

Batch import finds 0 sets — confirm you selected the parent folder containing your texture set folders, not one of the set folders itself. The batch tool scans exactly one level of subfolders. Sets nested deeper will not be found.

The Scripting Editor asks to reload the file after installing — click Yes. The editor is notifying you that the file on disk was updated by the installer. Clicking Yes reloads the latest version in the editor.

The material renders incorrectly in Corona or V-Ray — Arnold OpenPBR Materials are designed for Arnold only. When rendered with a different engine, 3ds Max uses an approximation. Switch the active renderer to Arnold via Render Setup (F10) to see the material as intended.

A WARN line appears in the MAXScript Listener — WARN lines mean a specific property name was not found on your Arnold build. The import continues and all other channels are wired correctly. Copy the Listener output and send it to support@superellipse.co with your Arnold version number.

Questions?

If you run into anything not covered here, reach out at support@superellipse.co and include the name of the texture pack you were importing, along with your 3ds Max and Arnold version numbers.