Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
4
Materials
4.1 Introduction to Materials
4.2 Material Settings
4.3 Material Buttons
4.4 Material Colors
4.5 Adding a New Material
4.6 The Preview Tab
4.7 The Diffuse Tab
4.8 The Specular Tab
4.9 The Hardness Value
4.10 Ramp Shaders
4.11 Transparency
4.12 Halo Settings
4.13 Vertex Painting
4.14 The Application of Materials
and Material Slots
4.1 Introduction to Materials
What is a material in Blender? A material is a color but it is also much more than that. Th ink
of the color red: it could be dark red or light red or any shade of red you could image. Th e
color can be shiny or dull, it can be transparent, or it can gradually fade from one shade to
another; the possibilities are endless. Th at is a material.
Learning
Unit 5
Colored
Materials
4.2 Material Settings
Th e default Blender scene has a cube
object that displays as a dull gray color.
Color is the way your eyes interpret the
refl ected light from an object's surface.
If there is no light, you see nothing, so
Blender has placed a white-light lamp in
the default scene and assigned data to the
cube that shows the cube as being gray
in this color light. Every object added to
the scene will also be given the same data
as the cube, so you will see them as gray.
Adding a material is done in the proper-
ties window with the “Material” button
activated (Figure 4.1).
Properties window
Figure 4.1
Material button
