Using Maps and the Environment as Material Components

Using a map in a color component (such as Diffuse Color) of a material applies the map’s coloring to that component. Applying maps to other kinds of material components can have various effects, such as making a material look bumpy, controlling its transparency, the appearance of highlights, and so on. You can also use the environment as a map to simulate reflections and refractions, or provide a background to the scene.

The topics in this section describe the effect of using maps for various commonly used material components. The topics do not describe all the possible material components to which maps can be applied: For a complete list of the components in a particular material type, refer to the description of that material.

Screencapture GIF of opening the Maps rollout in the slate material editor.

How to open the Maps rollout for a material.

Topics in this section

Ambient Color Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to map an image to the material's ambient color. The image is painted on the shaded parts of the object.
Diffuse Color Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to assign a pattern or texture to a material's diffuse color. The colors of the map replace the material's diffuse color component. This is the most common kind of map usage.
Diffusion Map
The Diffusion map component lets you apply an additional, second texture to modify the Diffuse component.
Diffuse Level Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to control the Diffuse Level parameter. White pixels in the map leave the diffuse level unchanged. Black pixels reduce the diffuse level to 0. Intermediate values adjust the diffuse level accordingly.
Diffuse Roughness Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to control the Roughness parameter on the Basic Parameters rollout. White pixels in the map increase roughness. Black pixels reduce roughness to 0. Intermediate values adjust roughness accordingly.
Specular Color Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to apply an image to the material's specular color component. The map's image appears only in the specular highlight areas.
Specular Level Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to alter the intensity of specular highlights, based on the intensity of the bitmap. White pixels in the map produce full specular highlights. Black pixels remove the specular highlights completely, and intermediate values reduce the specular highlights accordingly.
Glossiness Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to control where specular highlights appear. A map assigned to the Glossiness material component determines which areas of the whole surface are more glossy and which areas are less glossy, depending on the intensity of colors in the map. Black pixels in the map produce full glossiness. White pixels remove glossiness completely, and intermediate values reduce the size of the highlight.
Self-Illumination Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to control the self-illumination value. This makes portions of an object appear to glow. White areas of the map render as fully self illuminating. Black areas render with no self-illumination. Gray areas render as partially self illuminating, depending on the grayscale value.
Opacity Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map in the Opacity material component to make an object partially transparent. Lighter (higher-value) areas of the map render as opaque; darker areas render as transparent; and values in between are semi-transparent.
Cutout Map
Assigning a bitmap or procedural map to the Cutout component makes the material partially transparent. Lighter (higher-value) areas of the map render as opaque; darker areas render as transparent; and values in between are semitransparent.
Filter Color Map
The filter color, also known as the translucency color, is the color transmitted through transparent or semi-transparent materials such as glass.
Anisotropy Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to control the Anisotropy parameter. The map controls the shape of the anisotropic highlight, roughly (but not necessarily) within the area specified by the Glossiness parameter. Black and white values have little effect. Maps with a good deal of grayscale values, such as Noise or Falloff, can be very effective.
Orientation Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to control the Orientation material component. Orientation controls the position of the anisotropic highlight. Using an Orientation map changes the highlight's position.
Metalness Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to control the Metalness material component. White pixels in the map increase metalness. Black pixels reduce metalness to 0. Intermediate values adjust metalness accordingly.
Bump Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map as a Bump map, which makes an object appear to have a bumpy or irregular surface. When you render an object with a bump-mapped material, lighter (whiter) areas of the map appear to be raised, and darker (blacker) areas appear to be low.
Displacement Map
A Displacement map displaces the geometry of surfaces. The effect is similar to using the Displace modifier. Unlike Bump maps, a Displacement map actually changes the geometry of the surface or patch tessellation. Displacement maps apply the gray scale of the map to generate the displacement. Lighter colors in the 2D image push outward more strongly than darker colors, resulting in a 3D displacement of the geometry.
Reflection Map
You can use a bitmap file or procedural map to control the reflectivity of an object surface.
Refraction Map
You can use a bitmap file or a procedural map such as Reflect/Refract to control an object’s refraction.
Environment Map
You can use a map for the background of a scene. Reflection maps and Refraction maps also use environment coordinates instead of texture coordinates.

Parent topic: Maps and Shaders