Regarding older version of Xoliul Shader, go to window settings plugins and enable hlslshader. Apply a hlsl shader material to your object and assign it the .fx file.
How cool was that light painting bit in the fx video, a guy kayaking down a river with a bright light to illuminate the scene. DVD's need more of this stuff! amazing.
I think something similar to the race car's presentation would look great for that robot. Floor, background fx, shadows, AO and nice custom HDRI reflections.
as almighty gir stated, use shader fx its free and pretty much the same as unreals material editor, sure its different here and there but the basis is the same
Not so much a fleshed out idea, but rather a style... I've always wanted to do a claymation-styled environment. Could have some fun with shaders and FX...
I switched from games to visual fx right before all these massive layoffs........im pretty secure now. there is different jobs everyday........crazy shit
You probably just need a shader that specifically supports an object- or local-space normalmap. The default Max FX shaders only support tangent-space IIRC.