Understanding Materials
Material Properties
Color
The base color of the surface.- Use the color picker in Properties panel
- Can be any color (hex codes work too)
Roughness
How smooth or rough the surface appears.- 0 = Perfectly smooth (mirror-like)
- 1 = Completely rough (matte)
Examples:
- Polished metal: 0.1-0.2
- Plastic: 0.3-0.5
- Wood: 0.5-0.7
- Concrete: 0.8-1.0
Metalness
How metallic the surface looks.- 0 = Non-metal (plastic, wood, skin)
- 1 = Pure metal (gold, silver, chrome)
[!INFO]
Metals reflect their environment and tint reflections with their color. That's why gold looks gold and copper looks copper!
PBR Materials
Our editor uses PBR (Physically Based Rendering):
- Realistic light behavior
- Consistent under different lighting
- Industry standard for games and web
[!NOTE]
PBR was developed to make 3D graphics look realistic by simulating how light actually behaves in the real world.
Quick Recipes
| Material | Color | Roughness | Metalness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | #FFD700 | 0.3 | 1.0 |
| Silver | #C0C0C0 | 0.2 | 1.0 |
| Plastic | Any | 0.4 | 0.0 |
| Rubber | #333333 | 0.9 | 0.0 |
| Glass | #FFFFFF | 0.0 | 0.0 |
[!TIP]
When in doubt, keep metalness at 0 for most real-world objects. Only metals (gold, silver, chrome, copper) should have metalness = 1.