Plastic

• Diffuse Color - Defines the base color by setting the diffuse reflection color. This is the color the shader takes on when the light reflection of the surface is spread in many directions. Use the slider to change the brightness. Click the color field on the right to open the color chooser. Assigning a texture to the diffuse color projects it onto the surface. The appearance is a combination of the defined color and the assigned texture.

• Glossy Color - Sets the material’s color for surfaces glossy reflections. Use the slider to change the brightness. Click the color field on the right to open the color chooser. Assigning a texture to the glossy channel defines areas in which different gloss intensities appear with the help of a texture. The glossy color depends finally on both the defined color and the assigned texture file.

• Roughness - The roughness parameter controls light reflections on top of the surface. The higher the value the rougher the microscopic structure on top of the surface and the more diffuse are the reflections.

  As of version 2024, the material roughness control to a perceptually linear behavior with a 0 - 1 range for easier control.This enables VRED to map roughness values from other material libraries. When opening existing scenes, the material appearance will not be changed; however, the value are adjusted to the new 0 - 1 range.

  Converting Old Roughness to New

  For those who have old materials that need to be converted to this new roughness scale, you can do this either manually or with Python.

  • Manual Approach - Use a calculator for new conversion values. For example, if you used a VRED roughness value of 2.0 for certain material types, such as leather, you will need to calculate the value for use in the 2024 version.

    Note:

    If a material from an older version with a certain value is imported into 2024, the conversion is done automatically and you will see the new value.

    Use these formula to convert an old roughness value to the new and vice versa.

    • From old to new - To get the new value, divide the old roughness value by 40.0, then take the square root of the result twice.

      newRoughness = sqrt(sqrt(oldRoughness / 40.0))

    • From new to old - To get the old value, multiply the new roughness value by itself four times, and multiply that by 40.0.

      oldRoughness = (newRoughness^4) * 40.0

    • Python Approach - Material roughness can be set with a Python script. VRED 2024 expects the values to use the new range (0 - 1). VRED 2023 and older expect the values use the old range (0 - 40).

    Therefore, a script written for an older VRED version (2023.4 and below) might set a specific roughness value.

    For example:

    leather = vrMaterialService.createMaterial("leather", vrMaterialTypes.Plastic)
    leather.setRoughness(2.0) # legacy roughness value for VRED 2023

    When using this script in 2024, this value needs to be converted to get the same visual result as in the old VRED version. To do this, the previous formulas can be defined as these two Python functions:

    from math import sqrt, pow
    
    def toNewRoughness(oldRoughness):
       return sqrt(sqrt(oldRoughness / 40.0))
    
    def toOldRoughness(newRoughness):
       return pow(newRoughness, 4.0) * 40.0

    Therefore, for VRED 2024, this will onvert legacy roughness value to 2024 value:

    leather = vrMaterialService.createMaterial("leather", vrMaterialTypes.Plastic)
    leather.setRoughness(toNewRoughness(2.0)) # convert legacy roughness value to 2024 value

• Reflectivity - Controls the intensity of reflection on the surface. The higher the value, the more the influence from environment and objects around.

For further information on the Texture settings, refer to the General Truelight Material Diffuse Texture section.

As of v2023, Triplanar materials were deprecated. When these materials are now imported into VRED, they are converted to Plastic.

Triplanar mappings use three values, X, Y, and Z, instead of two with UVs. In the Realistic tab > Diffuse Texture section of a plastic material, enable Use Texture and click the folder icon to upload a picture file. Now, you can access the Mapping Type option and set it to Triplanar. Set the texture size, then use the X, Y, and Z Repeat UV, Offset UV, and Rotate values to align the texture and make individual changes.

This section contains options for setting clearcoat attributes for the plastic material. Use this when looking for a material to build an interior decor with wood materials.

• Type - Defines the intensity of a reflection based on the viewing angle. Its intensity at normal incidence is set by the material's reflectivity. Choose from the following:

• Off - Turns off the clearcoat.

• Fast - Uses a fast but less accurate approximation to the Fresnel Term (Schlick approximation) to create the clearcoat layer.

• Accurate - Uses a physically accurate evaluation of the Fresnel Term (Cook-Torrance approximation) to create the clearcoat layer.

  • Color - Sets the pigment color in the layer.
  • Refraction Index - Sets the material's refraction index. The index of refraction allows glass-on-glass contact situations. It shows the amount the rays are reflected off the surface versus absorbed (refracted into the surface).
  • Thickness - Sets the thickness of the clearcoat.
  • Density - The concentration of the layer’s particles. Use this in conbination with Thickness and a non-white color, as white is completely transparent.
  • Use Orange Peel - Applies a bump structure to the layer. Use the following options to customize this:

• Orange Peel Frequency - Sets the bump structure's noise frequency. The higher the value, the closer together the orange peel bumps.

• Orange Peel Intensity - Sets the bump structure's intensity. The higher the value, the more visible the orange peel and less smooth the clearcoat surface.

Bump mapping enables the creation of structure to the materials surface. The Bump slider controls the height of that effect. A higher value results in more depth structure. If a texture is assigned to the bump map channel, it is used as a pattern figure on surface illustration. If no texture is assigned, a default noise map is used instead; Structure Size affects then scale.