Glass

• Exterior Transparency - Sets the material exterior transparency color. This acts like a color filter for the light coming from behind the surface. A darker color blocks more light and makes the surface more opaque. In rasterization, the exterior transparency sets the color of the glass when the surface normal is facing towards the camera. This is in contrast of the interior transparency, which sets the color when the normal is facing away from the camera. Raytracing uses this attribute for both sides.

• Interior Transparency - Sets the material interior transparency. It acts the same as the exterior transparency by filtering the light coming from behind the surface. A darker color blocks more light, making the surface more opaque. In rasterization, the interior transparency sets the color of the glass when the surface normal is facing away from the camera. This is in contrast of the exterior transparency, which sets the color when the normal is facing towards the camera. Raytracing ignores this attribute.

• Reflection Color - Sets the material color for reflections.

• Select Medium - Offers a wide selection of refraction indices based on materials existing in reality. Choose from a custom medium, acrylic glass, water at various temperatures, and so many other real-world materials. With a selection other than custom medium, the Refraction Index is automatically set. For a custom medium, it will need to be set.

• Refraction Index - Only available in Raytracing rendering mode. Sets the material's refraction index.

• Screen Space Shadows - Only available in Vulkan rendering mode. Enables real-time screen space refractions.

• Scene Space Refractions - Turns screen space refractions on or off. See Screen Space Refractions for more information.

• Simulated Thickness - Sets the materials simulated thickness.

• Use Dispersion - Simulates how different wavelengths of light are refracted, resulting in dispersion effects. This only works with spectral raytracing.

  • Input Type - Defines how the refraction indices for different wavelengths are calculated.

    • Abbe Number d-line - Bases the calculation on the d Fraunhofer line at 587.56nm. Affects the density of the glass. The denser the glass, the lower the Abbe number and the higher the refracted index.

    • Abbe Number e-line - Bases the calculation on the e Fraunhofer line at 546.07nm. Affects the coefficient of expansion of the glass.

    • Spectral Distribution - Uses the refraction indices defined by the spectrum. This affects the radiating light dispersion. For example, tinted UV glass would have a different spectral distribution than a headlight. When enabled, an IOR Spectrum option appears. Click its Edit button to edit the spectral distribution. Click Accept when finished to save changes.

      

      Note:

      Abbe Number is disabled when Spectral Distribution is enabled.

  • Abbe Number - (Also known as the V-number or constringence of a transparent material) Sets the approximate dispersion of the glass or other materials. It is used to classify the chromaticity of glass and other optical materials. The higher the value, the lower its dispersion. This is also known as the V-number or constringence of a transparent material.

    Note:

    When Spectral Distribution is selected, Abbe Number is disabled.

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

• Fresnel Term Quality - Describes the intensity of a reflection based on the viewing angle. Its intensity at normal incidence sets the material’s reflectivity.

  • Fast - Uses a fast but less accurate approximation to the Fresnel Term.
  • Accurate - Uses a physically accurate evaluation of the Fresnel Term.

• Use Solid Shadows - Casts a solid (black) shadow (if a render mode is selected that can calculate caustic effects due to refractions). Otherwise, the color of the shadow is calculated solely on the Glass’s color.

• Use Roughness - Makes the glass frosted with glossy reflections and refractions, wnen enabled. The roughness parameter controls light refractions on top of the surface. The higher the value, the rougher the microscopic structure on top of the surface and the more diffuse the reflections.

• Use Density - Reduces the strength of rays passing through glass depending on how far they travel inside the glass.

Can be used to load a texture to the exterior surface.

• Use Texture - Loads an image texture for the exterior transparency channel. Using a grayscale image is recommended. For color images, the red channel is used.

Once Use Texture is enabled, any of the following options could appear.

• Use Image Sequence - Select when an image sequence is loaded in the Use Texture box. This uses an image sequence as a texture. The image name for the sequence will be generated based on the filename and the image number. Use the Curve Editor to animate the image number. Go to Animation > Timeline. Click play to view the animated image sequence on the material.

  Note:

  For a group of images to be considered an image sequence, there must be at least two images with the same name with an increasing numeric value. The required naming format is name, number, and extension. For example, image000.png image01.png.

  • Frame Offset - Only available when Use Image Sequence is enabled. Sets an offset to the image number when using an image sequence.
  • Inline Image Sequence - Only available when Use Image Sequence is enabled. Inlines the image sequence into the .vpb file.

• Link Texture Settings - Links the texture mapping settings together when multiple texture slots of a material are selected. When changing the Repeat UV of a linked texture, all linked textures are changed at once. When selecting this option for a texture, while other textures of that material are already linked, its texture settings are also set to the already linked settings.

  Depending on the type of material, the setting options can vary. For common materials like Plastic and Phong, there are now three mapping types selectable for the using textures:

• Mapping Type - Only available when Use Texture is enabled. Sets the mapping type of the texture. There are three modes which can be selected:

  • UV - For radial and planar brush mapping. UV mapping is always used for Incandescence, Transparency, and Displacement textures.
  • Planar - For decals. The first two values define the orientation of the plane in 3D, the third value defines the rotation in 2D around the plane normal.
  • Triplanar - For triplanar brush mapping orientation. Use to apply textures to a geometry with no UVs. There is a blend zone where the projections overlap on the surface. If this does not give the desired result, actual UV coordinates need to be created, and UV must be used as the Mapping type for the texture in the material.

• Repeat Mode UV - Sets how the texture is repeated. There are four modes:

  • Repeat - Repeats the texture in all directions.
  • Mirrored - Repeats and mirrors the texture on the x- and y- axis with every repetition.
  • Decal - The texture is not repeated.
  • Clamp - Repeats only the last pixel of the texture.

• Use Texture Size - Only available when Mapping Type is set to UV. Uses the texture size, instead of repeat values. Select to defined texture size in millimeters instead of repeat values for texture mapping. The geometry UV texture coordinates must match the scene units to get real world scaling of the texture. Use Apply World Scale in the UV Editor to calculate the real world scaling of UV coordinates.

• Repeat UV - Only available when Mapping Type is set to UV. Sets the number of times the U/V texture mapping is repeated.

• Offset UV - Only available when Mapping Type is set to UV. Moves the position of the texture’s pattern horizontally or vertically. The higher the value, the bigger the difference from the original texture pattern.

• Rotate - Only available when Mapping Type is set to UV. Changes the orientation of the texture. It does not rotate is around a central pivot point like the rotate options in the Texture section. It rotates around the origin of the UV coordinates.

• Anisotropy - Only available when Mapping Type is set to UV. Sets the texture filter quality for the image texture. Use the following as a guide:

  • A value of 0.0 switches the filtering to normal bilinear filtering without mipmapping.
  • A value of 1.0 uses normal trilinear filtering with mipmapping.
  • Values between 1.0 and 16.0 will use anisotropic filtering.
  • A value of 16.0 is the maximum and provides the highest filtering quality.

• Use Infinite Tiling - Removes repetition artifacts from tiled, seamless textures.

  • Grid Size - Only available when Use Infinite Tiling is enabled. Sets the sample grid size (m x m) per unit UV-rectangle. A finer grid (larger value) will average out larger scale details and the resulting texture will look more uniform.
  • Contrast - Only available when Use Infinite Tiling is enabled. Sets the weight of the variance-preserving operation. May need to be lowered to remove excessive color clamping at the cost of blurring.
  • Max Rotation - Only available when Use Infinite Tiling is enabled. Sets the maximum value texture samples can be rotated.
  • Hue Weight - Only available when Use Infinite Tiling is enabled. Sets the weight of the random hue shift of each sample.
  • Saturation Weight - Only available when Use Infinite Tiling is enabled. Sets the weight of the random saturation shift of each sample.
  • Value Weight - Only available when Use Infinite Tiling is enabled. Sets the weight of the random value shift of each sample.

• Texture Size - Only available Mapping Type is set to Triplanar or to UV and Use Texture Size selected. Sets the width and height of the texture in millimeters.

• Projection Center - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Planar. Sets the projection center for planar texture projection.

• Projection Orientation - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Planar. Sets the projection orientation for planar texture projection.

• Projection Size - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Planar. Sets the size of the planar texture projection, the z-coordinate can be used to limit the depth range of the projections.

• Keep Aspect Ratio - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Planar. Sets whether the aspect ratio of the texture should be preserved for the projection or not.

• Consider Face Normal - Only available when Planar is enabled and Repeat Mode UV is set to Decal. Sets whether the planar projection should be done on one side of the geometry or both.

• Manipulate - Only available when Planar or Triplanar is enabled. This function requires a selection in the Scenegraph and a single selection in the Material Editor. Activates/deactivates the interactive texture manipulator in the render window.

• Fit Size - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Planar. This function requires a valid selection in the Scenegraph. Adjusts the projection size to the size of the selected object in the Scenegraph.

• Object Center - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Planar. This function requires a valid selection in the Scenegraph. Adjusts the projection center to the center of the selected object in the Scenegraph.

• Edge Blend - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Triplanar. Sets the range for overlapping areas of the planar projection.

• Uniform Repeat - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Triplanar. If selected, the repeat factors of the x,y,and z axes of the triplanar texture projection are linked.

• X Repeat UV, Y Repeat UV, and Z Repeat UV - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Triplanar. Sets the UV repeat factors for the specified axis of the triplanar texture projection.

• X Offset UV, Y Offset UV, and Z Offset UV - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Triplanar. Sets the UV offset for the specified axis of the triplanar texture projection.

• X Rotate, Y Rotate, and Z Rotate - Only available when Mapping Type is set to Triplanar. Sets the rotation value for the specified axis texture coordinates of the triplanar texture projection.

For information on options other than the following, please see the Roughness Texture section.

• Minimum Roughness - Defines the roughness value to which a texture value of 0 is mapped.
• Maximum Roughness - Defines the roughness value to which a texture value of one is mapped.
• Value Mapping - Sets the mapping of texture values to the roughness values. Choose from Linear and Legacy.

For information on options other than the following, please see the Bump Texture section.

• Use Structure - Uses a 3D noise to influence the normal to simulate an uneven surface structure, when enabled. Use the options that appear to define the bump texture used.

• Bump Intensity - Controls how high the bumps display on a surface. Higher values make the surface appear bumpier. Negative values will invert the bump effect.

• Structure Size - Sets the structure size when the procedural bump structure is activated.

• Flip U and Flip V - Switches the orientation of what is stored in the normal map on the axis, ensuring the bump map is uniform with the normals displayed along the U and Y axes.

  To fix the normal map's tangent vectors orientation, change one of these and see if it corrects the issue. If it doesn't, disable that option and enable the other, or Enable both Flip U and Flip V. These options enable VRED to support different kinds of normal maps, as they provide a solution for aligning the normals.

  Flip U Disabled	Flip U Enabled

  Note:

  When using Flip U or Flip V for a normal map, the Parallax Intensity value should be kept at 0.0, as the height cannot be estimated in this case.

• Bump Type - Sets the bump type. The bump mapping can be drawn as bump map or as pixel displacement map without self-shadowing.

• Max Rotation - Sets the maximum value the textures samples can be rotated.

Displacement maps are detailed maps, which are interpreted as height information. Floating point displacement maps may encode displacements in both positive and negative directions using real world values. Using displacement maps you can create highly detailed structures from simple geometry by using a plain image. Each point on the geometry is displaced along the interpolated vertex normals using the height information of the map, resulting in a realistic silhouette, producing correct shadows, and reflections. Accuracy is limited by the resolution of the texture image and memory requirements are low. To avoid cracks in the displaced surfaces the vertex normals should be smooth and consistent. Using a higher tessellated base mesh can improve performance.

Hardware Tessellated Displacement Mapping

As of VRED 2026, hardware tessellated displacement mapping is supported for Vulkan to provide significantly better visual quality with minimal impact to performance. This adds fine details to surfaces using the displacement map texture, creating more complex geometry without a high-polygon base mesh. Whenever a material is loaded, uses a displacement texture, and the Displacement Height setting is greater than 0, hardware tessellated displacement mapping is used.

For information on options other than the following, please see the Displacement Texture section.

• Displacement Height - Defines the scaling factor of values for the displacement maps.

• Displacement Offset - Sets an offset for the displacement values to adjust the zero plane. Values less than the offset value will be along the negative normal direction, while values above the offset value will be along the positive normal direction.

• Use Accurate Silhouettes in OpenGL - This feature allows you to calculate the displacement in OpenGL like in raytracing mode. Selecting it may drastically reduce the performance. For further information on these common settings, refer to the Diffuse Texture section.

• Vulkan Edge Length - Sets the target edge length in scene units for displacement tessellation, which is only used in Vulkan. Low values result in a finer surface structure, but at the price of lower performance. Triangles are tessellated until the edge length is reached. The minimum edge length is limited by the maximum tessellation level provided by the GPU.