Materials and Textures
Apply presets and adjust material properties and texture mapping.
Updated
Materials define surface color, reflections, roughness, and emission. Start with a preset, then adjust the settings for the selected model and layer.
Apply a preset
- Select a model.
- Open Studio Library > Materials.
- Search or filter the library.
- Double-click a preset, or drag it onto a model or a specific material layer.
A preset dropped on a model uses its active layer. Select the intended layer first when you want to preserve other parts of the stack.
Adjust the surface
The available controls depend on whether the base material or another layer is selected.
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Base Color | Sets the material's main color. |
| Roughness | Higher values broaden and soften highlights. |
| Metallic | Controls the metallic surface response. |
| IOR | Changes dielectric reflection response. |
| Opacity | Controls surface coverage; lower values reveal geometry behind it. |
| Anisotropy | Stretches highlights in a brushed direction. |
| Brush Direction | Rotates that direction around the surface normal. |
| Brush Grain | Adds directional surface microstructure without changing geometry. |
| Emission Color / Emission Strength | Makes the material appear emissive. |
Use the lighting environment to judge reflective materials. Adjusting roughness under a flat lighting setup may produce only a subtle visual change.
Glass and tinted glass
Select the model's Base Material layer, then apply Glass from Studio Library > Materials. Change Base Color to tint the glass; white gives clear glass. Lower Opacity makes the surface more transparent, while higher values make its color more pronounced. Roughness controls highlight softness, and IOR controls the strength of dielectric reflections.
Glass uses the preview renderer's transparency and angle-dependent reflections. It does not bend the geometry visible behind it. Apply it to the base material because Fill and Paint layers do not control surface opacity or IOR.
Add texture maps
In Texture Maps, load images into Base Color, Roughness, Metallic, or Normal. For example, the Wood preset supplies base color, roughness, and normal textures.
Mapping uses Triplanar (Object Space), so this material workflow does not require UV coordinates.
- Tiling controls repetitions across the normalized object size.
- Offset shifts the texture placement.
- Rotation turns the projection.
- Blend Sharpness controls the transition between projection axes.
Consider mesh density
Paint and the material layer stack use mesh vertices. Layer texture detail can look softer on a coarse mesh than on the base material. Increasing output image resolution does not add vertices or painted detail.
When this limits the result, prepare a denser mesh in the modeling application before painting. Topology changes during a later handoff can clear Paint Layer samples; see HardCuts Handoff.
Continue with Material Layers and Painting.