Apply color and shading to an object

After you have created your model, you can add color and shading to it by doing the following:

• Create a material and assign it to your object
• Set a color for the object
• Map a texture to any of the material attributes. See Map a 2D or 3D texture to a material for more information.
• Adjust the material attributes, for example, its specularity, transparency, and so forth

Create a material and assign it to your object

Right-click your object in the viewport and select Assign New Material. Select any of the available shaders from the editor that appears. In this example, a Phong shader is created and assigned to the body of the dinosaur model.

Set a color for the object

You can set a color for your object by clicking the Color value swatch to edit the color using the Color Chooser.

Alternatively, you can map a texture to the Color attribute of your material, as demonstrated in the Map a texture to any of the material attributes section below.

Map a texture to any of the material attributes

You can map a texture to any of the material attributes that appear with a icon beside it.

For example, you can add color to your model by mapping a file texture to the material's Color attribute, or add surface detail by mapping a normal map to the Bump Mapping attribute to give the appearance of a rough surface.

1. Click the icon beside the Color attribute and select File.

   A File texture node is created. Click the browse icon beside Image Name to navigate to your texture file.

   Press 6 for textured mode in the viewport to see the texture applied to the dinosaur.

2. Similarly, click the icon beside the Bump Mapping attribute and select File.

   Select the file node in the Attribute Editor and click the browse icon to navigate to your normal map.

3. Display your normal map in tangent space or object space.

   In this example, the bump on the model's body is not very realistic. To correct this, select the bump2d node, then select Use As > Tangent Space Normals.

Note: A icon indicates that a texture has been mapped to an attribute.

Adjust the material attributes

You can further refine the shading of your model by adjusting any other material attribute.

For example:

• Increase the size of the specular highlights by adjusting the Cosine Power attribute
• Give the dinosaur a metallic, shiny skin by changing the Specular Color to a lighter grey

The attributes that you can adjust depend on the shader that you have assigned to the material. Different attributes are available for the Blinn shader, for example, as compared to the Lambert shader.

This topic covers the basics of creating and assigning a material to an object. For advanced users, you can create materials using the Hypershade. See Look development using the Hypershade.