About the Autodesk Material Libraries

The Autodesk Material Libraries are shared libraries installed with Autodesk products such as Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max.

The Material Libraries are installed by default (unless you deselect the option) when you install 3ds Max. If one of the other applications is already installed, the material libraries might be installed already.

The Autodesk Material Library consists of three sub-libraries:

Autodesk Material Library 2017
This library contains the material appearances used for Realistic Appearance in color styles. It is installed by default, and it is required for 3ds Max to have full visual style and color style functionality.

Note: It is recommended you do not uninstall this component unless you are also uninstalling all Autodesk products that require this library.
Autodesk Material Library 2017 – Base Image Library
This library contains low-resolution (approximately 512 x 512) images for use with Autodesk Materials.
Autodesk Material Library 2017 – Medium Image Library
This library contains medium-resolution (approximately 1024 x 1024) images for rendering materials in medium detail. This library is used for close-ups and for rendering objects at a larger scale. This library is an installation option available on the Select Products to Install page in the installation wizard.

Caution: If you uninstall or remove a library, the library is no longer available for any products. Uninstalling also means you will be unable to view or display scenes that have Autodesk Materials currently in them.

To reinstall the material libraries, run the corresponding MSI:

Autodesk Material Library 2017: \Content\ADSKMaterials\2017\CM\MaterialLibrary2017.msi.
Autodesk Material Library 2017 Base Image Library: \Content\ADSKMaterials\2017\ILB\BaseImageLibrary.msi.
Autodesk Material Library 2017 Medium Image Library: \Content\ADSKMaterials\2017\ILM\MediumImageLibrary.msi.