Viewport (Interactive) Renderer

The interactive renderer, used for the viewports, is designed for speed so you can easily manipulate your objects in a shaded environment. It's not the same as the production renderer, which is used for your final images. Therefore, a number of effects that are available to the production renderer will not show up in the viewports.

When you design your materials, for example, you have four levels of visual feedback. The lowest level is the shaded viewport. The next level is an ActiveShade viewport (or floater). The next level is the sample slot, which uses the production renderer to display the sample sphere. The highest level is the rendered scene, which uses the production renderer to display the scene.

A single material can contain any number of maps.

Because viewing mapped materials slows the viewport display, it's up to you to decide which map (if any) you want to display. To display a specific map, you go to that map's level in the Material Editor, and then turn on its display. (If you later go to a different map in the same material, and turn its display on, the other map is automatically turned off.)