Color

The color of a material on an object is different in different areas of the object. For example, when you look at a red sphere, it does not appear to be uniformly red. The sides away from the light appear to be a darker red than the sides facing the light. The reflection highlight appears the lightest red. In fact, if the red Sphere is very shiny, its highlight may appear to be white.

You can assign a color or a custom texture which can be either an image or a procedural texture to the material.

Image

Controls the base diffuse color map of the material. The diffuse color is the color that an object reflects when illuminated by direct daylight or artificial light.

Image Fade

Controls the composite between the base color and the diffuse image. The image fade property is only editable if an image is used.

Glossiness

The reflective quality of the material defines the degree of glossiness or dullness. To simulate a glossy surface, the material has a small highlight, and its specular color is lighter, perhaps even white. A duller material has a larger highlight that is closer to the main color of the material.

Highlights

This controls the means for deriving specular highlights of the material.

Metallic highlights disperses light in an anisotropic way. Anisotropic refers to properties of material which depends on the direction. Metallic highlights are the color of the material while non-metallic are the color of the lights hitting the material.

Other Properties

The following properties can be used to create specific effects:

• Reflectivity. The Direct and Oblique sliders control the level of reflections and the intensity of the specular highlight on surfaces.
• Transparency. The Transparency check box controls the level of transparency of the material. A completely transparent object allows the passage of light through it. The transparency value is a percentage: at 1.0, the material is completely transparent; at lower values, the material is partly opaque; and at 0.0, the material is completely opaque.

  The Translucency and Index of Refraction properties becomes editable only when the Transparency value is greater than 0. A translucent object lets some light pass through and scatters some light within the object; for example, frosted glass. The translucency value is a percentage: at 0.0, the material is not translucent; at 1.0, the material is as translucent as possible.

  The Index of Refraction controls the degree to which light rays are bent as they pass through the material and thus distort objects that are seen on the other side of the object. For example, at 1.0, the object behind the transparent object is not distorted. At 1.5, the object is distorted greatly, as if it were seen through a glass marble.

  Material	Index of Refraction
  Air	1.00
  Water	1.33
  Alcohol	1.36
  Quartz	1.46
  Glass	1.52
  Diamond	2.30
  Custom	0.00 - 5.00

• Cutouts. The Cutouts check box controls the perforation effects of the material based on a grayscale interpretation of a texture. Lighter areas of of the map render as opaque and darker areas render as transparent.
• Self illumination. The object appears to be emitting its own light. For example, to simulate neon without using a light source, you could set a self illumination value greater than zero. No light is cast on other objects.

  The Self Illumination check box infers changing values. This control filters color, luminance, and color temperature of the material. The Filter Color creates the effect of a color filter over the illuminated surface.

  Luminance causes a material to simulate being lit within a photometric light source. How much light is emitted is a selected value in photometric units. No light is cast on other objects.

  Material	Luminance (candelas per square meter)
  Dim Glow	10
  LED Panel	100
  LED Screen	140
  Cell Phone Screen	200
  CRT Television	250
  Lamp Shade Exterior	1300
  Lamp Shade Interior	2500
  Desk Lamp Lens	10000
  Halogen Lamp Lens	10000
  Frosted Bulb	210000
  Custom	unclamped

  The color temperature sets the color of the self illumination.

  Material	Color Temperature (degrees Kelvin)
  Candle	1850
  Incandescent Bulb	2800
  Flood Light	3400
  Moonlight	4100
  Daylight Warm	5000
  Daylight Cool	6000
  Xenon Arc Lamp	6420
  TV Screen	9320
  Custom	unclamped

• Bump. The Bump check box turns on or off the use of the relief patterns of the material. The object appears to have a bumpy or irregular surface. When you render an object with a bump-mapped material, the lighter areas of the map appear to be raised and the darker areas appear to be low.

  The Amount adjusts the height of the bump. Higher values render as higher relief and low values render as low relief. Grayscale images make effective bump maps.