Lambert Material

Lambert is the matte material. Light falls across the shape in a smooth gradient, bright where a surface faces the light and darker as it turns away, and there is never a highlight or a shine. Chalk, unglazed clay, paper and dry plaster all read this way.

How it works

The brightness of each point depends only on the angle between the surface and the light, not on where the camera is. That is why the shading stays put as you orbit around the object and why nothing glints. With so little to calculate, Lambert is one of the lightest lit materials, a good fit for large scenes with many objects or for phones.

Settings

• Color: the matte color (default a bright cyan).
• Emissive and Emissive Intensity: make the surface glow on its own, for lit windows or soft light sources.
• Reflectivity: only matters with an environment map attached.
• Opacity and Wireframe, as on every basic material.
• Image maps for color, transparency and ambient occlusion, which darkens creases and contact areas.

Use it for

Low-poly art, terrain and landscapes, background buildings, soft matte objects and any calm, illustrative scene where shine would distract. Add a highlight by switching to Phong; go fully stylized with Toon; go realistic with Standard at high Roughness.