Materials

Materials are like paints. They give meshes the color, surface, and other appearance factors of real-world materials like glass, wood, and steel.

Materials can also have textures to add complexity to the colors of their surface, give the effect of a texture or random roughness to the surface without adding geometry, and other attributes. These textures are applied in layers to a material. Learn more about Material Texture Layers.

Materials are formally called "physically-based rendering" (PBR) materials. PBR materials are the prevailing format used across a wide variety of platforms and media, from entertainment to marketing. Most third-party assets (Turbosquid, Substance, CGAxis, etc.) are provided in this format and can be easily imported into your scene.

Applying a library material to a mesh

Begin prototyping quickly by applying one of the pre-defined global materials to your mesh.

1. Ensure the mesh you want to “paint” is visible in the scene viewport.

2. From the bottom tab bar, click Materials > Library Materials.

3. Browse through the library of pre-defined materials to find one closest to your needs.

4. Drag the thumbnail of the material onto the mesh: you’ll see the material appear on the mesh.

Cloning / extending a library material for use in one scene

If you’ve applied a library material or global material to a mesh, but it’s not exactly what you need, you can clone / extend the material to your scene. By doing so, you create a duplicate copy that exists only within this one scene, so you can customize it as you like with no risk of unwanted changes appearing in other scenes.

1. Select a mesh that is currently painted with the material you want to extend.

2. In the properties pane, see the name of the material, with an "extend" button next to it.

3. Click the button: note how the material has been copied to the "Materials" list in the explorer on the left, and the mesh is now painted with this cloned copy of the material.

4. Select the new material in the "Materials" list. All the properties are now editable, and changes appear immediately on the mesh.

Creating a global material for use in many scenes

1. Click on a mesh that’s painted with the material you want to clone.

2. In the properties pane for that mesh, open the material expander.

3. Click “Clone to Scene” or “Extend”.

4. Notice a new scene material has been added to the scene explorer on the left.

5. Click on the new scene material in the explorer: its properties now appear in the properties pane.

6. Edit the name of the scene material.

7. Optionally, edit any of the other properties in the properties pane. To start, all properties are inherited from the original material.

   • To edit any property, click the pencil icon next to that property.

   • To revert any property back to the original inherited value, click the x (cancel) icon next to that property.

Applying any material to any mesh or multiple meshes

If you have a scene material which would be useful to reuse in other scenes, you can define it as a global material. Global materials appear in any scene, but changes to their properties are applied across all scenes. These are a great way to ensure a consistent look across all your scenes (like a library material), and also have the flexibility to adjust any of its properties (like a scene material).

1. From the bottom tab bar, click Materials > Global Materials.

2. Click “+ Add New” to add a new global material.

3. In the properties box that appears, adjust the properties of your material. (See the properties table below.)

4. Save your work. The new global material appears as a thumbnail under Materials > Global Materials.

5. To use the global material, drag its thumbnail onto a mesh.

6. To edit the global material everywhere, click the pencil in the corner of its thumbnail.

7. To edit the global material just in this one scene, extend the material.

Remember that editing a global material changes its appearance here, in this scene, as well as in every other scene using it. Usually, you would coordinate with other scene designers in your organization before making changes to a global material. Try extending the material first.

There’s a faster way to apply a material to one mesh or many meshes.

1. Select one or more meshes. You can…

   1. add individual meshes by CTRL-clicking each one (either as objects in the viewer, or as entries in the explorer list).

   2. add a list of meshes by clicking the first entry in the explorer to include, then SHIFT-clicking the final entry.

2. The properties pane on the right will state the total number of meshes you selected.

3. In the properties pane, scroll down to the Material Source field. Select the source of the material.

4. In the Material field, select the material you want.

5. See the one material applied to all the selected meshes.
   (Note that any mesh-specific properties (such as opacity, cast shadows, etc.) are retained: they are not part of the material.)

Types of materials

To summarize the 3 types of materials:

Material Type	Defined by	Found in	Useful for
Library Materials	Once by us. Library Materials cannot be edited.	Bottom Tab Bar > Materials > Library Materials	Quick application of common materials.
Global Materials	Once by you, appearing in many scenes.	Bottom Tab Bar > Materials > Global Materials	Custom material, but consistent across all your scenes.
Scene Materials	Once by you, appearing in only this scene.	Left Explorer tree > Materials	A custom material, unique to this scene.

Material properties

General

The general properties manage how the material is applied to meshes.

General Property	Description
Z-Offset	Default: 0 If two planes are located at the same position, the materials of the panes will compete to be shown, causing a distracting shimmering visual effect (called Z-fighting, stitching or planefighting). Use a material’s Z-Offset property to solve this problem: set a lower number to the material you want more visible. Consider two meshes, with their top surfaces coplanar. The green material has the same Z Offset as the grey material, so Z-fighting appears. Green Z offset set lower than gray. Z-fighting resolved, with Green material prioritized. Green Z offset set higher than gray. Z-fighting resolved, with Grey material prioritized.
Double Sided	Default: false What sides of a mesh should this material paint? Leave as false so this material only paints the exterior of a mesh; set to true to paint both exterior and interior. Most meshes are only seen from the outside, so apply this only when… you have a viewpoint within the mesh (sitting at the driver’s seat within a car mesh, or walking through an airplane mesh). a feature on the mesh causes the interior to be shown, such as the Delete Faces or Slice features. you're creating a sketch mesh, and a double-sided material makes the sketch easier to understand.
Albedo Layer Transparency	Default: false Control the visibility of the material’s Albedo layer (the material’s basic appearance). Learn more about material texture layers. If the material contains an albedo image texture layer, and that texture layer includes an alpha channel, you can use this alpha channel to define the opacity for the entire material. For example, consider a leaf texture: it has an image texture layer of the green leaf, and an alpha channel surrounds the leaf to make the space around the leaf transparent. This texture could be applied to a plane (just a single face), so instead of providing a separate monochrome Opacity Texture image, we can use the included alpha that already exists in our loaded albedo channel. This way we can avoid loading additional alpha data from other layers (the Normal map there, for example). This reduces computational overhead and makes the scene using this material faster.
Legacy Texture Stacking	For all new scenes this checkbox should be unchecked.

Physical

The Physical category handles how the material responds to light and the environment.

Physical Property	Description
Metallic	How metallic the surface appears. Decimal value, ranging from 0 to 1. 1.0 perfectly reflective, with sharp details of the environment. 0.0 minimally reflective, with only bright environment details vaguely visible. Usually, set this value to either 0 (off) or 1 (on). When necessary, use values between to adjust the appearance of materials with complex reflective appearances (such as the spangles seen on galvanized steel).
Roughness	Controls how rough the surface appears. 1.0 completely rough, with no visible details of the environment. 0.5 less reflective, like sandblasted metal. Some vague details and reflections. 0.0 perfectly smooth: lots of clear reflections visible. For more control over roughness, learn about bump maps.
Alpha	Opacity. Controls how much light is blocked by the material. 1.0 completely opaque. 0.5 vague shapes of meshes behind, like frosted glass. 0.0 completely transparent, usually becomes invisible.
Reflects Lights over transparency	This controls whether or not user-added lights (directional lights, hemispherical lights) will be reflected as the opacity decreases. If it is off, user added lights will not reflect if the object is fully transparent
Reflect highlights over transparency	This controls whether or not scene lights (such as lightmaps in the scene environment) will be reflected as the opacity decreases. If it is off, scene lights will not reflect if the object is fully transparent.

Color

All colors use RGBA code to determine their colors.

Color Property	Description	Example
Albedo Color	The base color of the material. Often setting this value and leaving remaining color properties at their defaults is enough.	A “water” material may have blue as its albedo color.
Reflection Color	The color of any light reflections (of user-added lights, such as directional lights, hemispherical lights, etc.)	A “water” color may have a pale blue, almost white, reflection color to tint any reflected light.
Emissive Color	The color of any light glowing from within the mesh itself.	A mesh in the shape of a neon sign or a vehicle tail light might have an emissive color of red.
Ambient Lighting Color	The color of any highlight reflections (of scene lights, such as lightmaps in the scene environment).	See reflection color above.

Lighting

Materials blend a number of light sources to simulate the way light interacts with a surface. By default, the default lighting map built into your environment will light your meshes. However, you may want to adjust a material’s response to light for illustrative or editorial purposes. The Lighting intensity sliders affect how the material reacts to different lighting components.

Lighting Property	Description	Example
Specular Lighting Intensity	Strength of the reflection of light sources themselves. This only applies to shiny objects (objects with low roughness).	Enhance the reflected shine of a nearby directional light on a metal part.
Environment Lighting Intensity	Strength of the diffuse light the material reflects from the bright areas in the environment texture (not including light-generating objects).	Brighten an otherwise dim fabric without over-exposing the metal buttons on the fabric.
Direct Lighting  Intensity	Strength of the diffuse light the material reflects from light-generating objects (not including the environment).	A directional light in the wheel well of a vehicle mesh to light the wheel within that darker space.
Emissive Lighting  Intensity	Strength of the light the material emits on its own. In a purely dark scene with no other lights, emissive lighting still apears as a bright area.	A gas station sign, glowing from within at night.

Clear Coat

An optional effect that gives the appearance of a smooth, shiny, clear or slightly tinted layer over the object.

Clear Coat Property	Description
Clear Coat Enabled	Turns on or off the effect.
Clear Coat Intensity	Strength of the clear coat effect.
Clear Coat Tint Enabled	Add an optional hint of color to the clear coat effect.
Clear Coat Tint	Specify the color of the optional tint.
Clear Coat Tint Intensity	Strength of the tint in the clear coat effect.

Anisotropy

If this material has a texture, and it is on a mesh that is often viewed at a sharp angle, turning on this feature can improve the appearance of the texture... but can also slow the rendering. Some possible uses could be on a cobblestone texture used as the floor below your configurable car, or a water texture used around a boat. These surfaces are textured and often seen from a sharp angle (they stretch off into the distance).

Anisotropy Property	Description
Anisotropy Enabled	Turns on or off the effect.
Anisotropic Intensity	Strength of the effect.
Anisotropic Direction	The 2D vector the effect should follow. Experiment with [0,1], [1,0] for directions square to the surface, or [1,1] for a 45-degree turn.