mesh_base

A mesh_base material is a physically based material featuring PBR (physically-based rendering) and SSR (screen space reflections) technologies. It provides the realistic reflections and lighting model. The material is available in the Materials list and is used as the default one.

Options available in the States tab enable different features thus activating additional textures and their parameters.

The main thing about the PBR material is a workflow. There are two workflows for Unigine PBR materials: Metalness and Specular. The specular workflow works with the old standard of textures that was used in the mesh_base material (diffuse, specular, gloss). Metalness works with the new standard of textures (albedo, metalness, roughness).

We've kept the Specular workflow to make it easier to upgrade your projects that have the old texture standard.

We strongly recommend to use the Metalness workflow for creating materials in new projects as it uses a less number of texture channels, and material parameters of the Metalness workflow are more similar to material parameters of the real world.

By using the Workflow field you can specify the workflow of the material:

• Metalness — with the new standard of textures.
• Specular — with the old standard of textures.

Deferred Buffers option specifies if deferred buffers of the material should be filled.

Emission 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. Enabling the option activates an additional emission texture.

Emission Texture

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.

Emission state disabled	Emission state enabled, 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.

Emission Parameters

Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) is a real-time imitation of the diffuse indirect light and its shadows.

Enabling the option activates the Ambient occlusion field that specifies which UV coordinates of the mesh will be used for textures:

• Base - base UV coordinates.
• 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.

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.

UV Transform AO

Auxiliary activates the auxiliary texture and parameters.

Auxiliary Texture

Auxiliary Color

The vertex color is a color assigned to each vertex of the 3D model in any third party 3D editor. After being imported to Unigine, such model can be used in a number of ways allowing you to reduce the amount of used texture and broaden the diversity of the final materials.

The Vertex color checkbox enables an additional Vertex color options field used for per channel modulation of the albedo, AO, light map, emission and auxiliary textures.

For the AO and detail textures you can choose which texture channel (R, G, B or A) to use. For albedo, light map, emission and auxiliary textures RGB channels are used simultaneously.

For example, using the vertex color of the albedo texture allows you to create a detail material. At the pictures below there is a model containing vertex colors (brown spotted). Left to right:

1. No texture is used, Vertex color is disabled.
2. No texture is used, Vertex color is enabled, the Albedo RGB mode is used.
3. The diffuse texture (light wood) is assigned, Vertex color is enabled, Albedo RGB mode is used.

The mesh_base material features a dynamic planar reflection technique. The reflecting power of the material depends on two parameters: metalness and roughness.

By using planar reflection options, you could create flat mirrors and flat dynamic reflective surfaces: parquet, flat varnished surfaces, etc.

The engine renders dynamic reflections for planar reflection by computing the position of the reflection camera. Reflection camera represents a camera on the other side of the reflective surface: the distance from reflector to camera is the same for real camera and reflection camera.

Planar reflections don't reflect each other: they render environment cubemap instead. Also, planar reflections miss post-effects.

To enable the planar reflections for the material, click the Planar reflection checkbox. After enabling the option, the additional Planar reflection field becomes available. Ensure that the material has dynamic reflections. If not, tune the following parameters: Metalness and Roughness for metalness workflow, Specular and Gloss for specular workflow.

Map Size

TwoSided

Show Pivot

Planar Reflection Parameters

The mesh_base material allows you to create materials for vegetation crowns and trunks. Enabling the Vegetation checkbox activates a set of additional animation and geometry parameters.

Animation

Leaves

Shadow Offset

2D noise enables a spatial color noise based on a 2D texture. Enabling the option activates the following texture and parameters:

2D Noise Texture

3D noise specifies if additional spatial noise and color gradient textures will be added. These textures add a random color variation to leaves.

Disabled Color noise	Enabled Color noise

Enabling the option activates the following textures and parameters:

3D Noise Texture

Color Gradient

Intensity

UV Transform

Noise texture native coordinates transformation along X, Y and Z axes. A vector of the three float components:

• By high values, color blobs are small in size (for example, several blobs per leaf). Tiles of the spatial noise texture are small and repeat often
• By low values, color blobs are big (for example, several blobs for the whole tree). Tiles of the spatial noise texture are big and repeat a few times

Transform = vec3(0.1)	Transform = vec3(0.01)

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

Available options are (when the state is enabled):

• Blending - detail blending mode.
  • Alpha blend
  • 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).
• Angle fade - detail angle fade.
  • Disable - disable overlapping of the base material.
  • Object transform (overlap) - 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

  • World transform (overlap) - 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.
• Mask - a 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.
  Enabling the mask activates the Detail mask field that specifies which UV coordinates of the mesh will be used for the detail mask:
  • Base -
  • Detail -
  • First UV -
  • Second UV -
  • Triplanar -
  • Overlap (object transform) -
  • Overlap (world transform) -

Normal map specifies the type of normal mapping that is used for a model.

• Object space normal maps are characterized by their full spectrum (rainbow-colored) appearance. They used for meshes which vertices cannot be deformed (it requires the model to remain in its original orientation). Object space normals are best for things that can move, but cannot be deformed, like walls, doors, cars, weapons, etc. It's easier to generate high-quality curvature because object space normal map completely ignores the crude smoothing of the low-poly vertex normals.
• Tangent space normal maps are easily recognized by their mostly blue appearance. Tangent Space normal maps can be rotated and deformed, therefore they are ideal for characters or objects that need to have vertex deformation, like water or tree limbs.

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

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

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.

Enabling the state activates the Lightmap option that specifies which UV coordinates of the mesh will be used for the light map texture:

• Base - base UV coordinates.
• 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.

Specular map activates a specular texture channel in the shading texture.

Microfiber map activates a microfiber texture channel in the shading texture.

Translucent map activates an additional translucent texture.

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

Disabled Parallax mapping	Enabled Parallax mapping

Available options are:

• Shadow -
• Depth cutout -
• Cutout -

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:

• Disabled - disables geometry inflation.
• 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.

These options specify which UV coordinates of the mesh will be used for textures.

Base Map

Detail Map

Post Processing

All of the textures fields have set default textures, which can be replaced by your own ones. Availability of some textures depends on the set States values.

Metalness Wokflow: Base Textures

Material window, Textures tab.

Albedo Texture

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.

Shading Texture

Shading texture is a container for four different textures:

• The R channel stores a metalness texture.
• The G channel stores a roughness texture.
• The B channel stores a specular texture.
• The A channel stores a microfiber texture.

Metalness Texture

A metalness texture 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)

Roughness Texture

A roughness texture 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

Specular Texture

A specular texture 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).

Notice

To use this channel, enable the Specular state.

• White color indicates that the area will be reflective.
• Black color indicates that there will be no reflections.

Without the applied specular texture channel	With the applied specular texture channel

Microfiber Texture

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

Notice

To use this channel, enable the Microfiber state.

Without fibers texture	With fibers texture

Normal Map

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.

Specular Wokflow: Base Textures

Detail Textures

Additional Textures

Microfiber Texture

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.

Lightmap Texture

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

Parallax Texture

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.

Transformation Parameters

The tiling and offset for the textures set are set in the Transform field of the Parameters tab.

• Base - base textures coordinates transformation.
• Detail - detail textures coordinates transformation.
• Detail mask - detail mask texture coordinates transformation.
• Parallax - parallax texture coordinates transformation.
• Balloon value - wire/balloon transformation coefficient.

Triplanar transform parameters:

• Base triplanar pow - a coefficient to scale the smoothness of interpolation between three projections.
  By the minimum value of 1, textures are interpolated as smoothly as possible.
  The higher the value, the more visible the line between projections and the narrower blended area is.
• Detail triplanar pow - a coefficient to scale the smoothness of interpolation between three projections.
  By the minimum value of 1, textures are interpolated as smoothly as possible.
  The higher the value, the more visible the line between projections and the narrower blended area is.

Texture Coordinates Transformation

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.

Base Textures Shading Parameters

The group of parameters in the Shading tab contains options for base textures.

Metalness Workflow: Base Textures Shading Parameters

Albedo

Albedo is a multiplier of the base color of the surface provided by the albedo texture.

Different Albedo parameters for the white albedo texture

Metalness

Metalness is a multiplier of metalness.

Changing the Metalness parameter, from 0 to 1

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.

Roughness

Roughness is a multiplier of the roughness of a surface.

Changing the Roughness parameter, from 0 to 1

Normal Intensity

Normal Intensity is an intensity of the relief of the normal map.

Changing the Normal parameter, from 0 to 1

Translucent

Translucent 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.

Translucent = 0	Translucent = 1

Microfiber

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.

Material Mask

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

Specular Worklow: Base Textures Shading Parameters

Diffuse

Diffuse defines the base color of the surface.

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.

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.

Normal Intensity

Normal intensity is a coefficient to scale the intensity of the normals (provided by a normal map). The higher the value, the higher the normal texture effect is.

Translucent

Translucent 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.

Microfiber

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.

Material Mask

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

Parallax

Parallax Height

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

Parallax step parameter specifies the step of the parallax mapping.

Lightmap

Detail Textures Shading Parameters