Material properties in 3D rendering refer to the characteristics and attributes assigned to surfaces or objects in a 3D scene. These properties define how light interacts with and affects the appearance of materials, influencing how they reflect, refract, absorb, and transmit light. Various material properties contribute to the visual realism of rendered scenes.
There are a couple of properties that can be edited when opening the material properites panel. Some of these require texture mapping, which is a technique used to apply detailed images, patterns, or data to the surfaces of 3D models. These images, referred to as textures, enhance the visual realism of rendered scenes by providing additional detail and variation to the appearance of objects.
Opacity: Opacity is the quality of being difficult to see through. A low opacity means high transparency and a high opacity means a low transparency.
Map: The “map” texture map functions with the logic that the red channel of the uploaded texture is used as the ambient occlusion map.
Alpha map: The “alpha map” is a grayscale texture that controls the opacity across the surface (black: fully transparent; white: fully opaque).
Sides: When using the side function and selecting the “front”/default option the object is seen from the front with all sides present but the inside has no texture.
When using the side function and selecting the “double” option the object is seen like with the front option, but texture is applied both inside and outside.
When using the side function and selecting the “back” option the object is seen without the top and front sides in effect being opened with the texture being present in both.
Material type: The standard material type option refers to the more detailed material type with more polygons and therefore also more editing options.
The basic material type refers to the less detailed material type with less polygons and therefore fewer editing options.
Standard is the default option and switching to basic changes the additional properties features present that can be edited.
Displacement map: The “displacement map” affects the position of the mesh's vertices. Unlike other maps which only affect the light and shade of the material the displaced vertices can cast shadows, block other objects, and otherwise act as real geometry. The displacement texture is an image where the value of each pixel (white being the highest) is mapped against, and repositions, the vertices of the mesh.
Emission: An emissive colour is essentially a solid color unaffected by other lighting. The emissive map texture map is modulated by the emissive color and the emissive intensity.
Roughness: Roughness is how rough the material appears. 0 means a smooth mirror reflection, 100 means fully diffuse. The green channel of the chosen texture is used to alter the roughness of the material.
Metalness: Metalness is how much the material is like a metal. Non-metallic materials such as wood or stone use 0 metallic use 100. The blue channel of the chosen texture is used to alter the metalness of the material.
Normal map: The RGB values affect the surface normal for each pixel fragment and change the way the colour is lit. Normal maps do not change the actual shape of the surface, only the lighting.
Specular map: Specular maps are used to define the shininess/highlight on a surface. Typically a specular map is a black and white image that maps out the shininess value on an object.
Reflectivity: Reflectivity is basically the texture's reflection of the light source that creates a shiny look with the intensity determined by the slider.
When the material type is set to standard (default option), the displacement, emission, emission map + colour, roughness, metalness and normal map functions can be edited. When you switch the material type to “basic” instead of the above listed properties you can only edit the specular map and reflectivity functions.
