mesh_base

Ambient emission activates an additional ambient emission texture. It is used to simulates glow from extremely bright surfaces, therefore imitating real light sources and highlights. It can be used, for example, to simulate a glow of distant objects.

Shadow shafts simulates visible volumetric shadows, arising when a bright world light source is partially obscured by the object.

Light map activates an additional light map texture therefore specifying that the material will be rendered lit by it. Material color (diffuse or albedo) is multiplied by the light map and the ambient color.

Parallax mapping activates an additional parallax texture to obtain the parallax or cutout effect.

Available options are:

• Skip - disabled.
• Default - apply a parallax effect that provides a convex relief based on a parallax (height) texture.

  Disabled Parallax mapping	Enabled Parallax mapping

• Cutout - apply a cutout effect that provides hard edges between the opaque and transparent areas.

Detail activates a set of textures (diffuse, normal, specular for the Specular workflow; albedo, normal and metalness for Metalness workflow) to form a material layer. It is applied for bringing detalization to the material.

Available options are:

• Skip - disabled.
• Overlay - depending on the base texture (diffuse or albedo) color, the base and detail textures colors are either multiplied (for dark color pixels) or screened (for light color pixels), which leads to the contrast increase while preserving highlights and shadows. Grey pixels are not effected at all.
• Multiply - the base texture (diffuse or albedo) color is multiplied by the detail texture color, resulting in darker colors. White pixels are not effected at all.
  Notice

  If detail textures are not visible enough in the resulting image, try increasing its color scale parameter (Diffuse or Albedo).
• Texture mask - texture mask is used for blending base and detail materials selectively (the detail textures will be shown according to the mask).
  Notice

  This option replaced the old mesh_layer_base material.
• Overlap (object transform) - overlap the base material by using the object transformation (detail textures will be rotated with the mesh). This option can be used to create stone material with moss, rust and corrosion atop.

  Base albedo texture	Detail albedo texture

• Overlap (world transform) - overlap the base textures by using the world transformation (no matter if you rotate the object, the detail textures will always be projected atop). This option can be used to create stone material with moss, rust and corrosion atop.

  Base albedo texture	Detail albedo texture

  Notice

  These two overlap options (Overlap (object transform) and Overlap (world transform)) replaced the old mesh_overlap_base material.

Geometry inflation allows you to apply an additional visual effect without real geometry changing. By using this option, you can create wires and balloons by specifying the type of inflation.

Available options are:

• Skip - disabled.
• Wire - wire type. It will bloat the geometry normals to provide more realistic wire depending on the distance to the mesh.
• Balloon - balloon type. It bloats the geometry by specified constant.

Opacity map indicates the alpha channel of which texture to use:

• Main - use the alpha channel of the main (albedo or diffuse) texture.
• Normal - use the alpha channel of the normal map.

Base map option specifies which UV coordinates of the mesh will be used for base textures.

• First UV - map the texture using the first UV coordinates of the mesh.
• Second UV - map the texture using the second UV coordinates of the mesh.
• Triplanar - map the texture without using UV coordinates of the mesh (textures are projected by using triplanar mapping).

Detail map option specifies which UV coordinates of the mesh will be used for detail textures.

• First UV - map the texture using the first UV coordinates of the mesh.
• Second UV - map the texture using the second UV coordinates of the mesh.
• Triplanar - map the texture without using UV coordinates of the mesh (textures are projected by using triplanar mapping).

AO map activates an additional AO map texture.e for more realistic lighting.

Available options are:

• Skip - disabled.
• First UV - map the texture using the first UV coordinates of the mesh.
• Second UV - map the texture using the second UV coordinates of the mesh.

Albedo texture specifies the color of the surface.

Without albedo texture	With albedo texture

The texture is 4-channeled:

1. RGB values store color information.
2. An alpha (A) value stores transparency information:
   • White color indicates that the area will be visible.
   • Black color indicates that the area will be transparent.

Normal map stores height information required to achieve an effect of Normal Mapping (a technique creating the illusion of depth for adding details without using additional polygons). When calculating lighting of the surface, the mesh geometry is overridden by the normals value.

Without normal map	With normal map

The texture is 2-channeled:

1. RG values store two components of a surface normal.
2. B value is calculated based on the R and G values in run-time.

Metalness texture stores information about material's metalness and roughness in different channels:

1. R value stores information about material's metalness:
   • White pixels indicate that material is metal.
   • Black pixels indicate that material is dielectric.

   The whole applied texture channel is white	The applied texture channel is partially white (reflective areas) and black (non-reflective white splashes)

2. G value stores information about material's roughness:
   • White pixels indicate that material is rough.
   • Black pixels indicate that material is smooth.

   Without the applied texture channel	With the applied texture channel

Microfiber texture creates an effect of napped surface. The lighter the pixel, the more napped material will be.

Without microfiber texture	With microfiber texture

The texture uses only R channel.

Diffuse texture specified the color of the surface. It is lightened according to a Lambertian lighting model (light intensity is permanent regardless of the camera motion and rotation and depends solely on the angle between the surface and the light direction).

The texture is 4-channeled:

1. RGB values store color information.
2. An alpha (A) value stores:
   • Transparency information (if the Alpha test option is enabled):
     • White color indicates that the area will be visible.
     • Black color indicates that the area will be transparent.
   • Detail mask.

Normal map stores height information required to achieve an effect of Normal Mapping (a technique creating the illusion of depth for adding details without using more polygons). When calculating lighting of the surface, the mesh geometry is overridden by the normals value.

The texture is 2-channeled:

1. RG values store two components of a surface normal.
2. B value is calculated based on the R and G values in run-time.

Specular map stores the light reflectance information. It defines shininess and a highlight color of the surface. The lighting is calculated as a Lambertian lighting model plus a surface angle, light angle, and viewing angle dependent specular highlight (Blinn-Phong lighting model).

The texture is 4-channeled:

1. RGB values store reflection color and intensity:
   • White color indicates that the area will be reflective.
   • Black color indicates that there will be no reflections.
2. An alpha (A) value specified the specular power (Gloss):
   • White color indicates that the specular highlights are very bright and intense.
   • Black color indicates that the specular highlights are dull.

Detail blend mask is a mask for two detail textures. Determines the way for two base and detail textures to be rendered.

The texture is 1-channeled:

1. R values store information about which textures will be rendered:
   • Black areas - base textures will be shown.
   • Red areas - detail textures will be shown.

Ambient occlusion (AO) texture modulates the global environment illumination, for example, when an object is lighter at the top from sky above, and darker at the bottom from the ground below.

Without AO texture	With AO texture

The texture uses only R channel.

Emission map stores information about the light emission. It is blended additively over a texture, so areas which do not glow at all should be pure black on the glow map, and any brighter colors will appear to be emitting light.

Without emission texture	With emission texture

The texture is 4-channeled:

1. RGB values store information about a glowing color.
2. An alpha (A) value stores a glow mask:
   • White color indicates that the area will be glowing.
   • Black color indicates that the area is not glowing.

Lightmap is a texture storing pre-computed light information. Usually is used for static objects. See the Lightmap article for more information.

Parallax map stores information about per-pixel parallax displacement.

The texture uses only R channel:

• White color indicates that the pixels are not displaced.
• Black color indicates that the pixels will be depressed farthest away.

Texture coordinates transformation parameter is a vector of four float components, consisting of two pairs of vector elements:

• Scale texture coordinates, along the X and Y axes.

  For example, by the scale of 2;2 the texture will be repeated four times on the surface. See the second picture below.

• An offset of the texture respectively to its initial position along X and Y axes.

  For example, by the offset of 0.5 along the X axis the texture will be repositioned to the right (so the left edge of the texture will be rendered in the center). See the third picture below.

Albedo

Metalness

IOR

Roughness

Normal

Back

Back is a scale of the translucency effect, which permits light to pass through the object, but diffuses it so objects on the opposite side are not clearly visible.

Back = 0	Back = 1

Diffuse

Diffuse defines the base color of the surface.

Diffuse

Diffuse is a coefficient setting the brightness of the diffuse texture. The higher the value, the brighter the diffuse texture is.

Specular

Specular is a color picker to choose the auxiliary specular color for the specular texture. It can be used for specifying different specular colors for one texture or modifying the texture color on the spot. The specular color of the texture and this color will be blended.

Normal

Gloss

Gloss is a coefficient modifying the size of the highlight (Phong shading). Low values imitate wider highlights, typically appropriate to create diffuse reflection from mat surfaces. High values imitate pinpoint highlights, typically appropriate to create uniform reflection of light rays from glossy surfaces.

Microfiber is a coefficient to scale the intensity of the microfiber (provided by a microfiber texture). The higher the value, the higher the microfiber texture effect is.

Parallax height is a coefficient to scale the power of the parallax texture displacements. The higher the value, the bigger the normals are.

Parallax step parameter specifies the step of the parallax mapping.

Auxiliary color parameter specifies the constant color for the auxiliary pass.

Lightmap Scale

Lightmap Gamma

Decal mask parameter specifies decal bit-mask. If the decal mask of the decal material matches the surface material, the decal will be projected.

A set of the shading parameters for detail textures:

Albedo

Metalness

Roughness

Albedo Visibility

Metalness Visibility

Roughness Visibility

Normal Visibility

A set of the shading parameters for detail textures:

Diffuse

Specular

Gloss

Diffuse Visibility

Specular Visibility

Gloss Visibility

Normal Visibility

Color is a color picker to choose a color multiplier for the emission texture.

Scale is a coefficient to scale emission texture intensity. The higher the value, the lighter and brighter light areas of the emission texture are.