Standard Material Properties

There are various standard properties that can be changed when working with materials, in this sections we will go through those properties to explain what they do and how they can be used.

Please see the main material page to see how you can adjust materials via the API.

Color / Map

Color

available via material.color

The color property is one of the simplest properties there is. It is simply changes the color of the material. If a map is applied, the color is multiplied with the map color.

Map

available via material.map

The map of a material is the color texture that is applied to it. Instead of a simple color, the texture is read for per-pixel control of the value.

Normal / Bump

Normal Map

available via material.normalMap

The normal map is used to fake small details like bumps and dents. It can be used to add more detail to an object without adjusting the geometry of it.

Normal Scale

available via material.normalScale

The normal scale is a multiplier for the normal map. The higher the value, the more pronounced are the effects.

Bump Map

available via material.bumpMap

The bump map can be seen as an older version of the normal map. It works in a similar way, but compared to the normal map, the bump map only stores the height, compared to the normal map that stores the angle as well.

If a bump map and a normal map are supplied, only the normal map is used.

Bump Scale

available via material.bumpScale

The bump scale is a multiplicator for the bump map, as the normal scale is a multiplicator for the normal map.

Displacement

Displacement Map

available via material.displacementMap

The displacement map actually move the vertices in a direction. Therefore, the actual geometry is transformed. As you can see from this example, the mesh on which to apply a displacement map, has to have certain properties. It has to be closed, as otherwise the geometries do not connect anymore. Additionally it has to have as many vertices as possible before being a performance liability. This is needed to show all the small details of the map. For a better example, please look here.

Displacement Scale

available via material.displacementScale

The amount of displacement that is applied.

Displacement Bias

available via material.displacementBias

The offset with which the displacement map is applied.

Emissive

Emissiveness

available via material.emissiveness

The emissiveness of a material is the color that is not affected by light. Compared to the regular understanding of emissiveness, which would indicate light emission and therefore illumination, this emissiveness property only indicates that the material is unaffected by light for this color.

Note: We are currently working on options to add a glow effect to the material to emulate the emissiveness better.

Emissive Map

available via material.emissiveMap

The emissive map is used for per-pixel control of the value.

Ambient Occlusion

Ambient Occlusion Map

available via material.aoMap

The ambient occlusion map is a map that is used to simulate ambient occlusion on the model. If a second set of UV coordinates is supplied, the map will be applied to those.

Ambient Occlusion Intensity

available via material.aoMapIntensity

A scaling factor for the ambient occlusion map.