The simplest way to begin exploring the Material group is with Geo’s default settings, starting with a simple sphere. You’ll see that only one material (Material 1) is offered in the ECP. You’re allowed up to five materials, and Geo is designed to expose only as many controls as are needed for your object’s separate meshes. For example, if you switch to a Custom geometry, you’ll see all five materials enabled.
The Animated Textures checkbox controls whether Geo allows animated textures to manifest during playback. This option is disabled by default to provide faster performance, because Geo handles all texture maps as a single frame. However, if you want animated elements in your textures, such as blinking lights, to display as the model allows, enable this checkbox.
Material Assignment determines which of three methods you use for applying materials to your model.
From Model. This default option applies materials as dictated by the model's creator or texture artist. As you can see in the following image, our pitifully painted pony has five distinct colors, one each for its body, tail, nostrils, inner ears, and hooves/mane/eyes. Each of these colors ties to the value set in each material's Base Color.
Per Mesh ignores embedded color assignments. Instead, you can apply a map to each of the five materials. If there are more than five meshes in the object, Material 5 will apply to all remaining meshes. In the hammer example below, the left image shows how the model appears when loaded with only default settings, which assign one material to the entire model. The right image offers a glimpse of what happens when the parameters for each of the five materials are customized. Model attribution: (Creative Commons) Superfuntimes on Sketchfab by Kenzie_SFT
For those who might be newer to models and texturing, a little extra context: The original hammer artist created all of the materials separately, but then condensed them into a single set of maps for exporting. So, an albedo colors the whole model. The Roughness Map determines the entire model's Roughness. Likewise for the Metal Map and Metalness. (We show these three maps in respective order below.) You'll notice that the handle in our default model (above, left) has no rust on its handle. This is because, while the same Metal Map applies to the entire model, the hammer head has a high Metalness value and the handle's value is low. In the right image, observe how we used a different Base Color for each material, but for M5 (the hexagonal nut on the handle's end) we applied no maps. This sort of distinction is only possible in Per Mesh.
One For All applies Material 1 to the entire object. Easy.
Material M1/2/3/4/5
The following controls apply to each of the five Material subgroups.
Surface Preset
With a default sphere, your Material 1 section will show a Surface Presets M1 pull-down set to Default.
At this point, your sphere will look like a cue ball. However, the Surface Presets pull-down offers
another 12 options, such as Chrome, Gummy, and Plastic (shown below from left to right), as well as a Custom option.
Shader
A graphics shader uses scripts and algorithms to calculate pixel colors and light levels in certain ways. Here in Geo, the Shader menu offers four broad categories: Physically-based, Color Only, Normals, and Depth. Your selection here determines which subgroup of options appear under the Shader line in the ECP.
Physically-based is the default shader. It provides the most realistic appearance, in part because it also pulls in environmental influences . When you look at the Plastic preset (above, right), it genuinely looks like blue plastic, including how its surface reflects light. Like Geo’s other three shader options waiting in the Shader pull-down, each shader has its own individual controls, like the Physically-based controls described below.
Base Color establishes the color for the Base Color Map. Base Color Map lets you select a comp layer to serve as the base color information, also called diffuse or albedo, for your material. In the following image, we link our Base Color Map M1 to a rusty, streaked pattern image. Next, we selected bright yellow as the Base Color so you can easily see the interplay between these two parameters in a single object texture. Note how our M1 Base Color/Map applies to the entire object. This is because we're working with Material Assignment: From Object, and this model expects to have a single texture mapped across it. If we wanted this rusty color scheme applied to just the hammer head or handle, we would instead begin with Material Assignment: Per Mesh.
Roughness sets the degree of shininess or matte finish on a scale from 0 to 100. Roughness Map allows you to select another layer to help define the roughness, like the fine texture on a solid’s surface. Roughness calculates as the opposite of glossiness, so if you have a glossiness map, you would want to apply an Invert effect to it first and make sure to set the Source menu to Effects & Masks. Shown below are Roughness values of 0 (left), 50 (center), and 100 (right) percent.
Metalness defines how metallic an object appears. Metalness works with Roughness to determine overall reflectivity. Metal Map lets you use a comp layer to help define the look of Metalness. Below, you see the image we used as our Metal Map (left), then our image with roughness and Metalness set to 50% without maps selected (middle). Finally, we kept those 50% values and linked the Metal Map parameter to our left image (right). Note that real materials are either metallic or they're not. There is no "kind of metallic" in the physical world. But that doesn't mean you can't experiment with having a little metalness in your creations.
Subsurface Weight controls subsurface scattering and how light shines through an object. For example, wax transmits and scatters more light than plastic or metal. This can be mapped with a layer via Subsurface Weight Map, but effects can be clear even without a map. Consider this example, where we placed a point light behind our model. The only parameter we changed was to slide Subsurface Weight from 0 to 100 percent. Especially observe how light seems to permeate the object edges closest to the light.
Transmission Weight establishes the object’s level of translucency and is well-suited to glassy surfaces. This can be mapped with a layer via Transmission Weight Map. In the magnifying glass model below, we show the difference between a 10% Transmission Weight (left) and 95 percent (right). Note that the image displayed through translucent materials is determined by the Refraction Map in the Environment group and affected by the Index of Refraction at the bottom of each Material group.
Opacity sets the object’s opacity level and can be mapped with Opacity Map. Here's our previous hammer model with no maps applied and M1 Opacity turned down to zero. You can still see the other model elements in their entirety, even those normally hidden by the M1 element.
Emission Color refers to light emission (anything that emits a brightness value) and is set to black by default to negate any emission. This is particularly useful when working with models that embed their own lights, such as a car with headlights. Change this to any color you like with the color picker tool (for instance, you’d likely pick white for headlights) and map the control if you want with a layer via the Emission Color Map. To ensure that your Emission Color Map values display accurately, make sure to set the Emission Color to white.
Bump Map Type lets you select between a Normal Map and a Grayscale Height Map to tell the renderer how light should reflect. (A Normal Map allows you to use an RGB normal map that produces three-axis bump while a Grayscale Height Map creates your bump from a grayscale/black-and-white image. The former tends to yield more dynamic bumps, but the latter lets you produce your own custom bump maps straight from After Effects.) Let's illustrate with the following example. We used Adobe's Fractal Noise effect to produce a noise field, which you see on the layer behind our sphere form. We used the Bump Map pull-down menus to reference that layer and its effect via the Effects & Masks option. With a Bump Map Weight of the default 100%, the sphere's surface just starts to show some influence and texture from the noise pattern. Our value of 600% becomes much more obvious.
Index of Refraction determines the angle by which light is refracts through a material, thereby emulating the light properties of various translucent materials, such as glass, water, or gummy bears. The default value of 1.55 approximates the appearance of glass. A value of 1 represents air and will produce no distortion. Values between 0 and 1 represent materials with a refractive index less than air, which can produce some pretty odd results when simulated. A value of 2 places you somewhere in between sapphire and cubic zirconia. The full range of the parameter spans -10 to 10 to allow for your more abstract expressions, as shown below in the animation from values of -5 to 5 on a sphere with the Surface Preset of Clear Glass.
You will likely want to use Index of Refraction along with the Refraction Map, a global control in the Environment group.
Texture Settings can tweak how your texture applies to your material.
Texture Tiling X/Y defaults to 100% values, meaning that the selected texture map spans or wraps around the model one time along that axis. A 200% value will tile that texture twice along that axis. A 50% value would use only half of the texture, causing it to stretch. Below, we show x-axis tiling of 100 (left), 5 (center), and 1000 (right) percent. In the rightmost image, note how the texture repeats as additional instances cram into the model face.
Texture Offset X/Y will shift the texture a given amount along that axis according to positive or negative values.
Texture Mapping can load models in several ways. From Model tells Geo to use the assigned UVs to map the texture as designated by the original creator. For the remaining options, you can imagine using a projector to project a texture onto the entire geometry. The difference between how it works in CG versus the real world is that it projects equally onto facing and opposite geometry. With Front, the object’s front face will appear normal, but the texture will look stretched across the object’s other surfaces. The same principle applies to Side and Top. Sphere and Cylinder provide alternate methods for wrapping a texture around your geometry if From Model doesn't provide you what you want. Results can vary depending on the texture maps and geometry, so choose the one that best suits your needs. We give a sense of what to expect in the following comparison between From Model (left), Sphere (center), and Cylinder (right).
Color Only. This shader provides a handy way to coat a model form in a flat, single color, although doing so will erase any shading. Thus, a shaded sphere becomes an unshaded, solid circle. However, Color Only becomes more useful when you select a Base Color Map and dig into the Texture Settings subgroup. The Base Color Map source supplies the texture to which you apply the Color (as shown below). Then you can manipulate the material with several controls, as we did to shift Color from the default white (left) to a more natural tone (right).
See the Physically-based shader section (above) for descriptions of these Color Only controls:
Texture Tiling X/Y.
Texture Offset X/Y.
Texture Mapping.
Normals. The Normals shader exposes your geometry's normals, allowing you to output a normals pass for use by other applications. Below, you see the difference between the Physically-based (left) and Normals (right) shaders. Generally, you'll want to set Material Assignment to One For Allwhen not needing to mix shader types between materials.
The Normal Only subgroup offers the same controls for Bump Map Intensity, Bump Map, and Bump Map Weight found in the Physically-based shader section.
Depth. The Depth shader offers a way to generate a depth map, where lighter colors represent closeness and darker represents distance. (Note that the Invert checkbox will reverse this.) Consider the following Cylinder shape (see the Cloner page about Shape options) of sphere forms.
Pick a base Base Color for your depth map. White is the default color, as shown here. Next, use the Near and Far controls to help isolate where in the model you want your map, meaning the gradient between Near and Far, to begin and end. The higher the Near/Far values, the more sensitive the controls become.
It may be easier to visualize Near/Far value changes by turning on your transparency grid. With a camera z position at -3800, the following two images show Near/Far values of 1000/1300 (top, the same as in the example above) and 1300/1600 (bottom). Notice how higher values push the gradient farther from the camera.
