Material Examples
Follow these step-by-step recipes to create five common material types. Use these as starting points and adjust to your specific needs.
Cotton Fabric
A soft, matte fabric material suitable for clothing, upholstery, and soft furnishings.
| Property | Value | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Base Colour | Your desired colour (e.g., #FFFFFF for white cotton) | The fabric colour. |
| Metalness | 0 | Fabrics are never metallic. |
| Roughness | 0.85 – 0.95 | Cotton is quite rough/matte. |
| Normal Map | Cotton weave normal map | Adds subtle woven texture detail. |
| AO Map | Optional | Adds depth to weave pattern. |
Tip: Set roughness to ~0.9 for everyday cotton, or ~0.7 for a slightly shiny satin-cotton blend. A normal map with a woven pattern is key to making it look realistic.
Stainless Steel
A polished or brushed metallic surface for appliances, hardware, and industrial parts.
| Property | Value | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Base Colour | #C8C8C8 (light grey) | Metals get their colour from reflections; keep base colour neutral grey. |
| Metalness | 1.0 | Stainless steel is fully metallic. |
| Roughness | 0.15 – 0.35 | 0.15 for polished, 0.35 for brushed finish. |
| Normal Map | Brushed metal normal map (optional) | Adds directional brush strokes for brushed steel. |
| Environment Map | Enabled | Essential for realistic metal reflections. |
Tip: For a brushed finish, use a directional normal map with fine horizontal or circular lines. For polished/mirror steel, skip the normal map and set roughness to 0.05-0.1.
Wood
A natural wood material suitable for furniture, flooring, and decorative elements.
| Property | Value | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Base Colour | Use a wood grain diffuse texture | The texture provides all colour variation and grain pattern. |
| Metalness | 0 | Wood is never metallic. |
| Roughness | 0.4 – 0.8 | 0.4 for lacquered/varnished, 0.8 for raw/unfinished wood. |
| Normal Map | Wood grain normal map | Adds tactile depth to the grain pattern. |
| AO Map | Wood AO map (optional) | Enhances grain depth. |
Tip: The most important texture for wood is the diffuse/albedo map. Pair it with a matching normal map for depth. Set tiling to match the real-world scale of the grain.
Glass
A transparent or semi-transparent material for windows, bottles, lenses, and display cases.
| Property | Value | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Base Colour | #FFFFFF (clear) or tinted (e.g., #E8F4E8 for green glass) | Tint the base colour for coloured glass. |
| Metalness | 0 | Glass is non-metallic (but highly reflective due to low roughness). |
| Roughness | 0.0 – 0.15 | 0.0 for crystal clear, 0.15 for slightly frosted. |
| Opacity | 0.1 – 0.4 | 0.15 for clear glass, 0.4 for frosted/tinted. |
| Environment Map | Enabled | Essential for realistic glass reflections. |
Tip: For frosted glass, increase roughness to 0.3-0.5 and opacity to 0.4-0.6. For perfectly clear glass, roughness 0.0 and opacity 0.1 gives a subtle, realistic effect.
Aluminium
A lightweight metal common in electronics, automotive, and consumer products. Can range from matte anodised to polished mirror finish.
| Property | Value | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Base Colour | #D4D4D4 (silver) | Slightly lighter grey than steel. For anodised aluminium, use the anodised colour. |
| Metalness | 1.0 | Aluminium is fully metallic. |
| Roughness | 0.2 – 0.5 | 0.2 for polished, 0.5 for matte/anodised finish. |
| Normal Map | Fine grain or sandblast normal (optional) | Adds subtle surface texture for anodised finishes. |
| Environment Map | Enabled | Needed for metallic reflections. |
Tip: For anodised aluminium (e.g., Apple products), set the base colour to the anodised colour (Space Grey: #5A5A5E, Silver: #E3E3E8, Gold: #E8D5C4) and roughness to 0.35-0.45. The slight roughness gives that signature soft-matte look.
More in Materials
Creating MaterialsBuild physically based (PBR) materials with base color, metalness, roughness, normal, and ambient-occlusion maps in the material editor.Material LibraryOrganize your material library into categories, search and filter swatches, and reuse materials across projects.Applying PBR TexturesApply PBR texture maps to 3D models and option-block variants with correct UV orientation for accurate, realistic surfaces.Bulk-Add Materials by CategoryPopulate a Select Material block from an entire category so shoppers can pick from large material libraries without per-variant authoring.