Advanced Material Properties: Main

Basic material properties

Reflective Finish and Highlight

These settings vary the way a material reflects light and objects. The highlight effect is normally associated with light areas on glossy materials where the light hits the object.

Note: To activate these settings, the Intensity value must be greater than zero.

Highlight color

White

Materials with a white highlight tend to resemble plastics.

Metallic

Sets the highlight color to match the base color.

Note: Chrome and other reflective materials do not make an interesting image unless they have something to reflect. Simply applying a reflective metal material to an object is not enough.

Custom

Specify any color for the highlight.

Intensity

Adjusts the strength of the highlight. Larger values increase the size and strength of the highlight.

Fresnel

Pronounced (fray-NELL) Controls the reflectivity of opaque materials, a phenomenon known as Fresnel reflection of conductors. The Fresnel setting  models the tendency of many materials to become more specular (mirror-like) at glancing angles while retaining more matte properties at perpendicular viewing angles.

Reduce the value for very dark materials to prevent too much reflection. Increase the value for materials like varnished wood, where the Fresnel reflectivity is more pronounced.

Sharpness

Sets the size of the highlight. Lower numbers specify a broader highlight; higher numbers focus the highlight in a smaller area.

Type

Changes how reflections are calculated when artificial light sources are reflected.

Reflections are calculated using two methods: raycasting and highlight. These two methods will eventually produce identical results; however, in certain situations, you will find that one method gets a good result more quickly. For example, objects might not look good because a light source reflection hides the material's appearance.

In the illustration below for Balanced type, the object on the left has a bright white reflection that overpowers the material's appearance.

Note: Blurry reflections of light sources can be associated with interior renderings where the light sources are small. The surfaces exhibiting the artifact typically have blurry reflections. Changing the type to Glossy, No Light Source Reflections, or Monte Carlo can help alleviate this problem.

Balanced

Automatically balances raycasting and highlight based on the Sharpness setting. Both the actual reflection of the light source and the artificial highlight are calculated.

Glossy

Increases the blurriness of the highlight and prevents raycasting. No object or light reflections are calculated, therefore performance is increased, and artifacts for materials with very blurry reflections are prevented. Some reflective subtlety may be lost.

Monte Carlo

Only raycasting is used to calculate reflections of light sources. The raycasting is initially very noisy and gradually converges to the correct solution. It is most useful when the highlight is not blurry.

No Highlight

Only raycasting is used to calculate reflections of light sources. This is useful when light sources are large and the material is not blurry; in which case, the highlight calculation can take a long time. The light source reflections gradually converge.

No Light Source Reflection or No Highlight

Excludes all reflections of artificial light sources and the artificial highlight effect. Object reflections are still calculated.

No Light Source Reflections

Excludes raycast reflections of light sources, only the highlight is used. This is sometimes useful for preventing speckle artifacts if the material is blurry and the scene contains small, bright, light sources.

Template

Indicates the template used with the Simple Material Properties dialog box.

Simple Editor

Opens the Simple Material Properties dialog box. The more commonly used settings are available in this editor.

Procedures

Base

The Procedures tree combines one or more materials using a set of rules for how the materials interact. The tree displays the components used to create the material and lets you add components. For simple materials, there will be only one component in the list: Base.

Each procedure combines two "child" materials using a specific method. Each of these child materials can in turn consist of a procedure, combining two children of its own. In this way, extremely elaborate materials can be built from simpler constituents. Procedures for combining materials include angular blend, blend, marble, granite, tile, and wood.

To add a procedure

To remove a procedure

Angular Blend

Blends between two different materials to create materials that change characteristics based on the angle of view to the surface of the object.

The Angular Blend procedure blends between two different materials to create special effects. Use Angular Blend to create materials that change characteristics based on the angle of view to the surface of the object.

Inner

From 0 degrees from the viewpoint to the Start angle, the Inner component will show completely. Think of this as a base material.

Outer

From the Stop angle to 90 degrees from the view, the Outer component will be the only material showing. Think of this as a coating.

Start angle

The angle from the viewpoint at which the Outer component material starts.

Stop angle

The angle from the viewpoint at which the Outer component material stops.

Between the Start Angle and the Stop angle, the Inner and the Outer components blend.

Start (1) and Stop (2) angles.

In the illustration, the Start angle is 30 degrees (the green circle) and the Stop angle is 60 degrees (the red circle). The Inner material is white, and the Outer material is black. Between 0 and 30 degrees from the viewpoint, you see white. Between 30 and 60 degrees from the viewpoint, you see a gradient from white to black. Between 60 and 90 degrees from the viewpoint, you see black.

Blend

The Blend procedure combines two base components and controls the proportions of each. All of the standard library wood materials use a Blend procedure to change the finish of the wood from clear matte to dark shiny.

Blends work well changing an entire material definition by adding an overall color to a base patterned material.

Blend

Varies the amount of each component material used.

Use image

Bitmap images usually consisting of grayscale patterns define where two component materials will show. The materials are blended by the value of the gray pixels in the image. Use a grayscale image map to mediate between the first and second components. The First component will be placed where there is black in the bitmap pattern, and the Second component will be placed where there is white in the bitmap pattern.

In the image, the same materials are used for the first and second components, but the blend is controlled by three different bitmaps.

The resolution of the mask bitmap affects the quality of the material. Higher resolution bitmaps allow a viewpoint closer to the material with fewer quality issues, but they also use more memory.

Tiles

Width

The width in pixels of a single instance of the image.

The scale of the material is independent of the resolution of the bitmap used to define it. In order to scale the material correctly, decide how large an area in real units one copy of the bitmap represents. If the bitmap represents the height of six 4-unit tiles and the length represents twelve 4-unit tiles, the scale would be 48 units in the x-direction and 24 units in the y-direction. This stretches the bitmap to the proper size for the pattern.

Height

The height in pixels of a single instance of the image.

Mirror tiles

Mirrors the bitmap image in both the x- and y-directions. This sometimes helps to cut down on seams showing in the repeats.

Use Alpha channel

If the image has an alpha channel, this can be used instead of the bitmap grayscale to determine where the colors blend.

Reverse

The First component will be placed where there is white in the bitmap pattern, and the Second component will be placed where there is black in the bitmap pattern.

Granite

Creates a 3-D material with solid pockets of a second material embedded in the Base component. The Granite procedure combines a randomly distributed Spot component in a Base component. The Granite procedure defines how the Base and Spot components combine. Granite procedures can be used for a variety of different materials including rust, sparkly plastic, and other randomly spotted materials.

Base/Spot

The Base and Spot components are two materials. Their properties are specified in the same way as any material.

Density

A fraction of the whole pattern. Increasing this setting increases the relative size of the spots.

Marble

Creates alternating slabs of Base and Vein components.

The Marble procedure defines how the Base and Vein components combine. The slabs are infinitely large, and the orientation of the object affects the way the slabs are oriented with respect to the object. Texture mapping for the objects controls the orientation of the material on the object.

No texture mapping (left). With texture mapping (right).

Base/Vein

The Base and Vein components are two materials. Their properties are specified in the same way as any material.

Vein Width

Alters the relative size of the slabs to each other. Vein Width is a fraction of the distance from one Base stripe to the next. Values range from 0 (zero) for no Vein component to 1 for no Base component.

Veneer (left), normal (right).

Tile

Tile is a 2-D material. Texture mapping for the objects controls the orientation of the material on the object. The Tile material combines a Base component and a Joint component. Each of these materials can also include any other material.

Scale tile differently in each direction for special effects. For example, use a tile material that is extremely long in one direction to create siding materials.

Tile

Sets the overall tile size. The width and height sizes can be set independently.

Width/Height

Specifies the width and height of the tiles.

Joint

Specifies the size of the joint material.

Horizontal joint/Vertical joint

Specifies the width and height of the joint material.

Lock

Maintains the ratio between the Horizontal and Vertical joint sizes.

Offset

Provides a relative horizontal offset per vertical tile. For example, use a setting of .5 to produce a standard running bond. This allows modeling of material such as marble tile, without the effect of having the entire floor hewn from the same block of marble.

Vary Tiles

Add randomness to the material color for each tile. This makes it possible to model material such as non-uniform bricks.

R/G/B

Modifies the red, green, and blue color components.

X/Y/Z

Offsets the material from the world origin. Do this if a seam that marks the beginning of the material appears an in inappropriate place.

Wood

Creates concentric cylinders of alternating Base and Ring components.

Wood consists of concentric cylinders of alternating Base and Ring components. The Wood settings define how the Base and Ring components combine.

The method used to create wood materials depends on how close it will be viewed. If the viewpoint is not close to the wood, a solid color can take the place of wood without sacrificing image quality. This allows faster rendering.

One of the advantages of using a wood material is that when rendering different sides of an object, the wood grain will look correct. End grain will show on the ends and parallel grain will show on the sides of an object.

Base/Ring

The Base and Ring components are two materials. Their properties are specified in the same way as any material.

Ring Width

A fraction of the distance between one Base stripe and the next. Values range from 0 (zero) for no Ring component to 1 for no Base component.

Veneer (left), normal (right).