Materials inspector

The Materials inspector is your central hub for manipulating the materials on a model or entities. It offers a robust set of tools for fine-tuning the look and feel of objects in your scene. You can import textures, tweak properties, and input various maps to achieve lifelike results on the web.

Manage entity materials

To manage the materials of your entities in your scene, follow these steps:

1. Select your entity: Choose an entity in the Hierarchy panel.
2. View its materials: Navigate to the Materials tab to view a list of all materials currently applied to the selected entity.
3. Adjust its properties: Modify the properties of each material within the Properties panel under Materials.

Material prototypes

The engine offers extensive support for various materials, each catering to specific visual requirements. These materials provide a foundation for creating various surface effects.

We recommend you use MeshPhysicalMaterial for transparent materials or objects that require Clearcoat like car paint.

Choose between different prototypes in the Properties panel:

Basic materials

This section explores some fundamental material types used for common rendering tasks:

Material	Description	Ideal use cases
MeshBasicMaterial	Applies a uniform color with no lighting effects.	Simple geometries, flat surfaces
MeshStandardMaterial	Implements physically based shading (PBS) for realistic lighting responses.	Metals, plastics, wood
MeshMatcapMaterial	Employs a pre-rendered texture for cartoon-like shading. Efficient for low-complexity scenes.	Cartoon rendering
MeshPhysicalMaterial	Provides the most accurate shading with light scattering and microfacet effects.	High-fidelity rendering
MeshLambertMaterial	Calculates diffuse lighting based on surface orientation, omitting specular highlights.	Matte surfaces
MeshPhongMaterial	Adds specular highlights using Phong shading, ideal for glossy materials.	Metals, plastics
MeshToonMaterial	Creates a cel-shaded, stylized look with sharp edges and limited color variations.	Cartoon rendering
ShaderMaterial	Offers complete control over material properties through custom GLSL shaders. (Requires advanced programming skills)	Advanced visual effects
ShadowMaterial	Specialized material for generating shadows within the scene. (Not intended for direct object rendering)	Shadow effects
LineBasicMaterial	Renders lines with a uniform color.	Outlines, edges, simple geometric shapes

Advanced materials

While the basic materials provide a solid foundation, these advanced materials offer more specialized functionalities and effects:

Material	Description	Potential use cases
HashTiledStandardMaterial	Creates non-repeating tiled textures on surfaces with noise functions. Offers control over the scale of the effect.	Procedural textures
SpriteSheetMaterial	Animates sprite sheets with controllable speed, ideal for fire or exploration time-based textures.	Animated textures, particle effects
ScrollingTextureMaterial	Animates textures by offsetting UV coordinates over time, creating visual movement.	Flowing water, scrolling textures on screens
AnimateVertexMaterial	Animates vertex positions with procedural noise effects, allowing control over animation direction (x, y, z), scale, and speed.	Dynamic mesh animations, water wave surfaces, underwater wavy effects
DisplacementMaterial	Combines animate vertex effects with displacement maps and scrolling texture effects. Offers control over scrolling texture speed and vertex offset scale.	Detailed terrain, flowing liquids
FadeMaterial (Advanced Users Only)	Gradually fades between primary and secondary diffuse maps from top to bottom. Both diffuse maps can apply scrolling texture effects and control speed. The fade effect can change speed and shape by applying noise textures. Note: Consider using simpler approaches for basic fading effects.	Complex game effects
CausticMaterial	Creates animated caustic light effects on geometry with procedural Voronoi textures. Offers control over caustic color and scale.	Realistic underwater effects, artistic lighting distortions
LavaMaterial	Creates a visually realistic lava effect with glowing embers, procedural diffuse color, and animated heat distortion.	Lava simulations
HolographicMaterial	Generates a holographic scan line effect. Allows animation of scan line density and color.	Sci-fi aesthetics, holographic displays
BasicStylizeMaterial	Offers cel-shaded effects with control over color variation density, enabling creation of more detailed stylized scenes.	Stylized rendering
WaterStylizeMaterial	Simulates stylized water with custom shaders using wave patterns. Properties include foam, water tint, and rim color.	Stylized water effects
LinesMaterial	Creates animated line effects on mesh surfaces. Offers control over color, density, and can be used for artistic design purposes.	Artistic line rendering, glowing outlines
GodRayMaterial	Simulates mesh-based god rays, streaks of light penetrating through smoke, dust, or fog.	Volumetric lighting effects, atmospheric rendering
FlowMaterial	Creates flowing UV effects by applying flow maps and diffuse maps, which are ideal for liquid surfaces.	Liquid simulations, flowing materials
WaterSimpleMaterial	Simulates a physically based ocean by applying an additional normal map. Offers control over wave speed.	Realistic ocean rendering
VertexColorLerpMaterial	Renders geometry with vertex colors, allowing for smooth color interpolation between vertices.	Custom vertex coloring effects

Choose the right material

Select the material based on your desired visual style, performance needs, and object complexity. Experiment with different materials and explore their properties to achieve the desired aesthetic for your project.