About Physical Materials

Physical materials help you create more realistic materials in real time, with a better visualization match between real-time visualization and ray tracing in Live Rendering.

These materials are based on techniques such as projectors at fragment level, Image-Based Lighting (IBL), reflections from surrounding environments, bumps, parallax occlusion mappings or texture maps, for each material channel.

In the material list of the Appearance Domain dialog box, they are marked by a "+". Each physical material has a corresponding advanced material.

The material appearance changes according to the visualization mode that you select when you render an image.

This page discusses:

Glass
Plastic
Metal
Generic Purpose
About Colors

Glass

Glass materials enable you to focus on the material transmittance aspect.

The following glass materials are available:


Material	Effect to Materials	Ray Tracing Visualization	Real-Time Visualization
+Clear Glass	Transparent and colorless effect. Note: Only the surface parameters and the index of refraction are required.
+Colored Glass	Transparent and colored effect. Note: You can specify the surface parameters, and volumetric transparency.
+Frosted Glass	Transparent and colored effect with the possibility of controlling the surface perturbation. Note: The clarity material appearance is not supported in real time rendering mode.
+Diamond	Transparent and colorless effect with the possibility of controlling the color diffraction within a medium. Note: Color diffraction is not supported in real time rendering mode.

Plastic

Plastic materials enable you to focus on the material reflectance aspect.

The following materials are available:


Material	Effect to Materials	Ray Tracing Visualization	Real-Time Visualization
+Matt Plastic	Rubber-like effect.
+Soft Plastic	Soft plastic-like effect with an unpolished surface. Note: If you define the specular glossiness's value to the maximum, your material switches to a polished plastic material.
+Polished Plastic	Plastic-like effect with a polished surface.

Metal

Metal materials enable you to focus on the material reflectance aspect.


Material	Effect to Materials	Ray Tracing Visualization	Real-Time Visualization
+Brushed Metal	Brushed metal-like effect.
+Satinated Metal	Satinated metal-like effect.
+Polished Metal	Polished metal-like effect.
+Car Paint	Varnished and flaked aspect.

Generic Purpose

This family contains materials that do not belong to the families previously mentioned.


Material	Effect to Materials	Ray Tracing Visualization	Real-Time Visualization
+Emissive	Acts as a light source material. Note: This material is not supported in real time but approximates the expected result when defining the parameters.
+Volumetric Scattering	Acts as a generic transparent or translucent material.
+Complex Material	Acts as a generic purpose material to create any type of material. Note: The parameters are extended so that you can approach all the appearance aspects of any material.
+Basic Material	Acts as a generic purpose material to create any type of material. Note: The parameters are limited so that you can approach the appearance aspects of a simpler material.

About Colors

Colors from the color picker are converted in sRGB space.

This means that more values are used in the upper end of the spectrum, which allows better control for the artist and better lighting in the engine. An sRGB color is brighter than its linear counterpart.