Physically Plausible Material Shaders

A pair of material shaders that emphasize physical accuracy are dgs_material and dgs_material_photon. They simulate three types of reflection:

diffuse (Lambert's cosine law),
glossy (isotropic or anisotropic),
specular (mirror),

as well as the corresponding types of refraction and translucency, and any combination of these. Therefore, they can simulate mirrors, glossy paint or plastic, anisotropic glossy materials such as brushed metal, diffuse materials such as paper, translucent materials such as frosted glass, and any combination of these.

Each material declaration using dgs_material has to have a photon "dgs_material_photon" () statement. These two shaders should be used together for physical accuracy. An example is:

material "mirror"  opaque    # ideal mirror material
   "dgs_material" (
      "specular"      1.0 1.0 1.0,
      "lights" ["arealight-i"]
   )
   shadow "dgs_material" ()
   photon "dgs_material_photon" ()
end material

Another pair of physically based shaders is dielectric_material and dielectric_material_photon.

For further details on dgs_material, dielectric_material, and their photon shaders, see the documentation of the Physics Shader Library.