Designing Materials

Materials make objects more convincing.

These topics give you an overview of using the Material Editor to design materials. The Material Editor gives you a huge number of options in material design. It also has a large number of controls. If you aren't already familiar with using it, read this topic for a general idea of working with materials, and what the most important options are.

For more details, follow the links in the workflow outline.

Workflow Outline

In general, when you create a new material and apply it to an object, you follow these steps:

Make a sample slot active, and enter a name for the material you are about to design.
Choose the material type.
For a Standard or Raytrace material, choose the shading type.
Enter settings for the various material components: diffuse color, glossiness, opacity, and so on.
Note: Lights and Shading describes how lights affect the appearance of a material. Choosing Colors for Realism gives guidelines on getting good results from unmapped materials.
Assign maps to the components you want to map, and adjust their parameters.
Apply the material to the object.
If necessary, adjust the UV mapping coordinates in order to orient maps with objects correctly.
Save the material.