About material properties
Each default material
has its own distinct parameter settings for a variety of properties such
as color, reflectivity and surface characteristics such as bump.
Adjusting these parameters will tune the look of an existing material
to your preference.
To start from a neutral
material instead of an existing material, select the Generic material under
the Miscellaneous category, add it to your scene and edit it.
TipIf you plan to use
precalculated ambient shadows, it is recommended you create and apply
them before you adjust your materials to make sure you get the effect
you are looking for
Add ambient shadows to surfaces.
Change material properties
With
an object selected, choose Materials > Material
Properties (or press Ctrl+M)
to change its material properties. The Material Properties window
appears.
The Material Properties
window contains some or all of the following types of properties. (Click
on the links for more information.)
NoteIf you edit the Material
Properties of a Decal material, it will have all of the above properties
as well as a Decal property. For more information, see
Change the appearance of decals.
Material editing display
settings
At
the top of the Material Properties window is the name of the current
material, and below it are two display settings checkboxes.
- Hide selection highlighting:
turns off the selection highlight for the selected objects (with
the material being edited) so that changes to the material can be
easily evaluated.
- Disable Anti-aliasing:
turns off progressive video antialiasing to improve performance
while the scene is static. Some video cards will increase antialiasing
of the scene once interactive motion stops, and changes to materials
may not update interactively.
Related links
These topics tell you
how to use some of the material parameter controls: