Maya: Hypershader

To access the Hypershader Window you can select the icon highlighted in the above image. Alternatively, via the menu select Windows > Rendering Editors > Hypershade.



This is the Hypershader Window, which is used for connecting rendering nodes to build textures, materials, lights, rendering utilities and special effects.



In the top right corner is a preview of the material I am creating. In order to see it applied to the object preview, I had to select Arnold from the drop down.



To apply the material to an object, I had to select the material holding down the scroll wheel on the mouse and drag and drop it onto the object in the viewport. I found this is a bit of a strange way to apply the material and it took several attempts to apply it to the correct object.

Lambert1: Default matte material, which should not be edited.
Blinn: Metallic material used for metals
Phong: Shiny material that replicates a plastic effect

Using Images for Textures
I found a crate image at https://free-texture-site.blogspot.com/2010/10/free-wooden-crate-texture.html which I am going to use to apply to my cube objects.



I have saved it in the file path in the image because this is where Maya expects to find the textures.



Using the left panel, I have selected Lambert to create a new lambert material. Then with the icon to the right side, this is used to create a new Render Node, which is used to connect together to produce rendering effects.





Using the icon, it opens the file path I saved the crate texture previously. Then I am able to select the image to apply it as a material.



Once I had selected the image, I can then apply the material to the object as I did previously. It was not appearing at first, and then I found https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-lt-forum/image-file-not-being-applied-to-new-material/td-p/7849283 that if I press "6" whilst in the viewport, it enables the Shaded Display which shows the new material applied.

This is an extremely simple and effect way to apply materials to objects and could be used for a huge range of objects to create all kinds of materials.