The editor is not standalone anymore. You launch it from the UI and all materials you create are saved within the Revit project itself. You can also save them as .vrmats for re-use in other projects (either by drag&dropping them from the mid-panel to the left panel or by using the Save as button at the bottom of the mid-panel).
You can add .vrmat folders locations to the left panel and browse/modify the library directly.
As we are in beta, we still don’t have all these features documented. Though, you can use the following pages as a guides to the Asset Editor functionalities (in terms of materials, it is consistent with V-Ray for SketchUp & Rhino):
1. adding library locations: Chaos Docs
2. materials: Chaos Docs
Please, let me know your concerns about the standalone mode.
I ask about the standalone mode because I occasionally use .vrmats from Revit when porting projects to 3Ds Max. With the standalone editor it was easy to edit .vrmats when using them in 3Ds without having to open up Revit/Sketchup/Rhino etc.
From what I can see there is no way to do this anymore? 3Ds does not come with a standalone editor from what I can see.
In the past, users could have multiple vrmat editor instances open simultaneously which was not good and quite often very confusing. On another hand, we’ve wanted to provide consistent workflow across SketchUp, Rhino and Revit because, as you know, V-Ray in Revit looks slightly different, slightly limited etc. To start this process, we had to rewrite the Asset Editor from scratch. And it’s one of its specifics that it requires a host app in order to work.
I understand the issue you have and all I can say is that we are working to provide consistency in that regard too.
3Ds is out of my scope, so I can’t say firmly yes or no. Besides it is essentially different compared to the AEC host apps. Though, if many enough users request it, I believe we can do something.
Count me in as a requester. Our workflow involves me (the max user) supporting several dozen architects using Revit and Rhino with entourage, tech support, etc.
*Anything* that helps make the cross-platform experience more seamless is a win. I would love to be able to say one day that our offline rendering platform is simply “V-Ray”, but the experience is still far too fragmented.