About the Material Editor

Scene > Material Editor

Use the Material Editor to create, modify, and group materials within VRED. For information on specific materials, see the Materials section.

The Material Editor is comprised of the following:

1 Menu Bar

2 Materials Section (Selector)

3 Search Bar and Filter

4 Materials Tree View

5 Tags Section (Selector)/Tree View

6 Groups and Tags Pane

7 Materials Preview Pane

8 Attributes Pane

9 Icons Bar

Material Editor

Menu Bar

File

Contains options for loading and saving materials, loading animation to the Materials Editor, rendering preview images, and viewing statistics.

Edit

Contains options for copying, pasting, merging, referencing, optimizing, removing, locking/unlocking, and compressing and decompressing.

Create/Convert

Contains options for creating and converting materials, groups, switches, and environments.

Scene

Contains options for dealing with selecting things within a scene.

Window

Contains the Groups/Tags, Preview, Attributes options for changing the appearance of the Material Editor. When an option is checked, that component is added to the editor. When unchecked, it is removed.

All Components

All Components

Groups/Tags Disabled

Groups/Tags disabled

Groups and Tags Pane

Shows the logical sorting and listing of the currently created materials. This is comprised of the Materials/Tags Selector, Search Bar and Filter, Material Tree, and Tag Tree.

Materials and Tags Sections

Materials and Tags Sections

Sets whether a section will be Materials or Tags. Click the selector to pick which view is shown in which section. By default, one shows Materials and the other, Tags.

Materials Tree View

Material Tree view

Lists all the materials and groupings within the scene. Third-party material types can be easily identified by their icons. OCS materials are identified with OCS material icon, Substance with Substance material icon, and X-Rite with X-Rite material icon.

Right-click within the Materials section to access an assortment of options. See the Context Menu for a list of these options.

Tags Tree View

Tag Tree view

Lists all tags found in the scene materials. By clicking a tag, the preview is filtered by materials with the selected tag. Tags can be defined in the general section, next to the material in the Attributes window or by dropping the material on a tag. Dropping a material group on a tab assigns the tag to the entire group.

Right-click within the Tags section to access the following options:

Search Bar and Filter

Search Bar and Filter

Conducts searches or filters for materials and tags. These can be searched for by name, using the Search Bar, or by material type, using the filter icon to the right of the search input box. The icon turns orange when a filter is active.

Materials Preview Pane

Materials Preview

Shows a visual listing of the materials, depending on the selection. Click something in the Materials Tree. When a material group is selected, only the materials in that group is shown. If no material groups are selected, then the entire listing of scene materials is shown.

Context Menu

Materials section and Material Preview pane

Contains quick shortcuts to commonly used Material Editor functions. Right-click in the Materials section and Material Preview pane to access the following options:

Create Material

Creates a material. Choose from a large list of materials. See the Truelight Materials Reference section, for information on each material and its use.

Create Environment

Creates an environment map material. Choose from Sphere Environment, Skylight, Substance Panorama, and Environment Switch.

Create OpenGL Material

Accesses a sub-menu for opening or creating an OpenGL Chunk material. See About OpenGL Materials - Chunk Material for more information.

Edit

Accesses a sub-menu with options for copying, pasting, duplicating, and deleting, along with others for pasting attributes and texture size, dealing with inline images sequence, and locking and unlocking materials.

Asset

Provides a submenu for editing the usage of external file references. These files are imported into the Scene Graph and are present within its structure.

Modify

Makes it possible to change the selected object. The object's icon changes to Modified Assets (modified asset).

Save in Asset Manager

Saves the selected asset within the Asset Manager.

Reload from Asset Manager

Updates the selected asset from the Asset Manager.

Breaks the link from the node of the selected asset to the Asset Manager.

Convert

Accesses a sub-menu with options for converting the selected material into a TrueLight material, Phong Truelight material, Skylight, or Sphere Environment.

Load Material(s)

Loads a previously saved material from a file.

Save Material(s)

Saves the selected materials to a file.

Create Switch from Selection

Creates a switch with only the selected tree items.

Select Nodes

Selects the geometry nodes assigned to the currently selected materials.

Add Nodes to Selection

Extends the selection in the Scene Graph to include nodes with the currently selected material.

Apply to Selected Nodes

Applies the currently selected material to the selected geometry nodes in the Scene Graph.

Create Light Sources

(Only available when Environment materials are selected) Opens the Create Light Sources from HDR module to add lights to your environment. Once the module opens, click the Create New Light Source button.

Boost Light

(Only available when Environment materials are selected)

In some outdoor HDRs, the sun is too dark compared to the sky. This leads to incorrect lighting that's bluish look, with shadows that aren't contrasted enough, etc.

Use the Boost Light dialog to repair an HDR. All values in the HDR above a threshold (e.g., 95% of maximum value) are scaled up by a user-defined boost. Use this to make the sun brighter, compared to the rest of the HDR.

Note:

If you choose to apply your boost settings to the environment, this action is not undoable, as the pixel values in the HDR are actually modified (overwritten).

Apply Environment to Selected Nodes

(Only available when Environment materials are selected)

Applies the environment to all materials of the selected Scene Graph geometry. This is a quick way to apply the same environment to a part of the model, such as a car exterior.

Apply Environment to All Materials

(Only available when Environment materials are selected)

Applies the environment to all materials in the Material Editor. Material types, such as Plastic, Brushed Metal, and Carpaints, use the environment for image-based lighting. Use the dialog that appears to assign the environment to only materials with a certain name.

For example, if you select an environment called “Skylight” and enter nothing in the dialog, all materials are assigned the Skylight environment. However, if you enter “Studio”, all materials currently assigned the Studio environment, now are assigned Skylight.

By default, all materials are assigned the default Environments switch. This means they use the environment that is currently active in the switch. When assigning a specific environment to a material, they will always use that environment, instead.

Attributes Pane

Attribute Pane

Shows all available settings for the currently selected material, along with a preview of the material. Any tags associated with the material are listed to the right of the preview.

Material Attributes

Descriptions for the following most noteworthy material attributes can be found in About the Substance Attributes:

Shadow Attributes

Descriptions for the shadow attributes can be found in Shadow.

Environment Attributes

Descriptions for the following environment attributes can be found in About the Substance Attributes:

For HDR Light Studio attribute definitions and explanations, see HDR Light Studio.

Icons Bar

Icons Bar

Contains visual shortcuts for commonly used commands in the Material Editor. The order of the icons is:

Keyboard Shortcuts

There are several hotkeys available for the Material Editor:

Parent page: Materials