A metallic car paint material has small particles made of metal, or flakes, on top of its lacquer layer. These particles increase the brightness within the angle of incidence, causing a light textured look. The color and size of the flakes is customizable.

The basic structure of this kind of paint consists of a mix of three or four different layers.

The base layer is a solid diffuse colored layer at the bottom to give a constant colored basis, independent from the actual material it is applied to. Usually, grey is used for this layer.

The second layer is the Primary Flake Layer. It contains both colored diffuse pigment particles that give the basic color impression and randomly distributed flakes.

The third layer is the Secondary Flake Layer. Its attributes are identical to the attributes of the Primary Flake Layer.

The last layer is the Clearcoat Layer, which is a specular layer. It can also have colored pigments in it.

Metallic Carpaint Material

• Paint Types - This attribute sets the type of carpaint to simulate. It can be chosen between three types:

  • Artistic - A simplified approach will be used on modelling carpaint. This paint material will consist of three layers (Base, Primary Flake and Clearcoat Layer)
  • 2-Coat - A more realistic approach will be used on modelling carpaint. This paint material will consist of three layers (Base, Primary Flake and Clearcoat Layer).
  • 3-Coat - A more realistic approach will be used on modelling carpaint. This paint material will consist of four layers including two flake layers on top of each other (Base, Primary Flake, Secondary Flake and Clearcoat Layer).

• Base Color - This attribute defines the basic color, the main characteristic of the material. Use the slider to change the brightness. Click the color field on the right to open the color chooser.

Primary Flake Layer

Set the behavior of the pigment particles and flakes.

• Pigment Color - Sets the pigment’s color. That gives the basic color impression of this layer.

• Pigment Concentration - The density of pigments can be set here. This controls, how many particles are present in the layer.

• Flake Color - Defines the color of the metallic particles on top of the lacquer layer. It gets stronger and more brilliant the further the normal orientation points away from the camera.

• Use Flip Flop - Select to use flakes with a Flip Flop behavior. If this box is selected, two more attributes become available:

  • Flip Flop Flake Color - Sets the metallic shiny flake’s second color. It gets stronger and more brilliant the further the normal orientation points towards the camera.
  • Flip Flop Blend - Defines the mixture ratio of the two flake colors. If the slider is dragged to the right, the intensity of the basic Flake color will be increased. If the slider is dragged to the left, the intensity of the Flip Flop Flake Color will be increased.

• Flake Roughness - Defines the amount of diffuse reflection and its complement specular reflection. The higher the roughness value, the more diffuse reflections are rendered.

• Flake Reflectivity - Sets the flake’s reflective intensity.

• Flake Size - Sets the flake’s size.

• Flake Perturbation - The randomness of the flake’s orientation.

• Flake Density - The concentration of the flakes can be set here. This controls, how many flakes are present in the layer. If the density is set to 0, no flakes are present and the paint represents a unicolor paint.

Secondary Flake Layer

When the paint type is set to 3-Coat, the attribute panel for the Secondary Flake Layer appears.

The pigment color influences the colors of the layer beneath because it is applied on top of the Primary Flake Layer.

The attributes are identical to the attributes of the Primary Flake Layer.

Clearcoat

The clearcoat is a transparent, reflective paint layer on the base paint layer.

• Clearcoat Type - This type describes the intensity of a reflection based on the viewing angle. Its intensity at normal incidence is set by the material's reflectivity.

  • Off - Turns off the clearcoat.
  • Fast - Uses a fast but less accurate approximation to the Fresnel Term to create the clearcoat layer.
  • Accurate - Uses a physically accurate evaluation of the Fresnel Term to create the clearcoat layer.

• Clearcoat color - Sets the pigment color in the layer.

• Refraction Index - Sets the material's refraction index.

• Thickness - Sets the thickness of the clearcoat layer.

• Density - The concentration of the layer’s particles.

• Use Orange Peel - Applies a bump structure to the layer.

  • Orange Peel Frequency - Sets the bump structure’s noise frequency.
  • Orange Peel Intensity - Sets the bump structure’s intensity.

For further information on the Incandescence, Transparency, Displacement, Raytracing, and Common settings, refer to the General Truelight Material Settings section.