Physical Material

Physical is Standard with the layers real objects add on top. It keeps Roughness and Metalness, then lets you lacquer the surface, let light pass through it, give it the soft edge glow of cloth or the shifting rainbow of a soap film.

The extra layers

• Clearcoat and Clearcoat Roughness: a thin clear varnish over the base, so a matte or colored surface gets a second, sharp reflection on top. Car paint, lacquered wood, glazed ceramic.
• Transmission, IOR and Thickness: light travels through the object instead of bouncing off. Transmission sets how see-through it is, IOR how much it bends what is behind it (1.5 is glass), Thickness how much material the light crosses. The Attenuation color and distance tint light as it goes deeper, for colored glass and liquids.
• Sheen, Sheen Roughness and Sheen color: a soft glow at grazing angles, the look of velvet, satin and felt.
• Iridescence and Iridescence IOR: color that shifts with viewing angle, as on bubbles, oil films and beetle shells.

All of these start at zero, so the material looks like Standard until you raise one.

Use it for

Hero products, jewelry and gemstones, bottles and liquids, fabrics and coated surfaces where the extra realism is visible. For ready-made glass, start from the glass family, which is built on this material. For simple solid objects, Standard is lighter and looks the same.