3D Materials

Materials are what an object's surface is made of. A mesh, a 3D model, the frames of a gallery or a line of 3d Text can all wear one, and the same sphere becomes chrome, frosted glass, wet sand or lava when you change it. The library has 16 types and around 150 presets, each a finished look that you can then adjust.

Realistic surfaces

• Metal: Gold, Silver, Chrome, Copper, Bronze, Brass, Titanium, Brushed Metal, Rusty Metal and more.
• Glass and Crystal: clear, frosted, tinted, smokey and stained glass, ice and amber, and gemstones from Diamond, Ruby and Sapphire to Opal, Jade and Black Onyx, with light bending through them.
• Wood: oak, pine, walnut, maple, cherry, ebony, bamboo, teak, cedar, polished wood and others.
• Plastic: glossy and matte plastic, rubber, silicone, acrylic, polycarbonate, frosted plastic and high-gloss white.
• Basic: the six standard materials, Basic, Standard, Physical, Phong, Lambert and Toon, for when you want to set every value yourself. Physical adds clearcoat, transmission, sheen and iridescence; Toon shades in flat cel bands instead of smooth gradients; Basic ignores lights entirely.

Nature and the elements

• Water: Lake, Ocean, Storm, Tropical and Arctic surfaces.
• Sand: ten deserts and beaches, from Sahara Dune and White Sands to Black Volcanic, Wet Shore and Martian and Lunar Regolith, with wind ripples and glints.
• Lava: boiling sun-like lava, Obsidian Crust with molten veins in the cracks, Hellfire, Blue Giant, Toxic Slime and Cryo Magma.
• Corona: glowing halo shells to put around a core, like the sun's corona or the ring of an eclipse.
• Clouds and Smoke: sky clouds from bright and wispy to stormy and dramatic, and animated smoke and smoke ribbons.

Effects and edges

• Effect Materials: nebula, storm, volumetric, cartoon, cirrus and painterly cloud looks, a rotating glyph ring and a sparkle burst.
• Advanced: Reflector for mirror-like floors, Refraction and Transmission for glass, and Distort and Wobble for animated, liquid surfaces.
• Line Effects: animated light running along an object's edges: Tesla electricity, Serpent and Solar plasma, Ghost wisps, Void Rift, Lava, Frost, Rainbow and more.
• Custom: the 3dRise Mesh Shader Material, with wave, ripple, vortex and colour effects.

How to choose

• Product shots: Metal, Glass, Crystal and Plastic, under a good key light.
• Architecture and interiors: Wood, Glass and matte Plastic, with a Reflector floor.
• Landscapes and dioramas: Sand and Water.
• Fantasy, sci-fi and energy: Lava, Corona and Line Effects.
• Stylised and illustrated scenes: Toon, the cartoon and painterly clouds.

A preset is a starting point. Its settings stay live, colour, roughness, metalness, opacity and whatever is special to its type, so a Gold can be pushed to rose gold and an Ocean calmed to a lake. On a 3D model you can apply one material to the whole model or replace the material of a single part.