3ds max Managing scene materials . I'm just removing them from this view. So likewise, I can select the file cabinet node and press Delete on the keyboard. If I need to get any of those back, I can just drag them from the Scene Materials over into the view, and I get a prompt asking if I want to make an instance or a copy. If it's an instance, once again, it will be connected to the objects in the scene to which that material is assigned. If it's a copy, there will be no connection. We'll choose Instance, click OK, and then double-click on that node. We can go back to editing it live, change that color back. The key concept here is that there is not really a hard relationship between the nodes in the graph versus the scene materials. So for example, I can drag out another leather here and make it a copy, and click OK. And it's got a new name, and I can change its parameters, but since it's not assigned to anything, nothing changes in the view. If I delete this node and it's not assigned to anything in the scene, then I won't be able to get those parameters back. That's how to work with scene materials.
