Material Options

Menu: Options / Material

Specify the material properties of an object. You can choose the current material from the materials provided. In other words, you select the material in which the next object or objects will be drawn. You can also create your own materials.

After the material is selected, objects drawn will have that material property. For example, if you select the material Walnut and then draw a hemisphere, the hemisphere will look like walnut wood.

Note:  Library materials cannot be edited. To create editable materials, click Add.

Ambient: The amount of background light shining on the object. This dictates how much shadow is visible on a shaded object.

Diffuse: The amount of flat (not shiny) reflection you get from a shaded object.

Specular: How shiny (not flat) the material appears.

Transparency: How "see-thru" the material appears. Materials with a value of 0 are opaque. Materials with a value of 100 can barely be seen when shaded. Transparency is only displayed when shading with Gouraud or Phong shading with graphics acceleration disabled.

Emission: Makes a shaded object look brighter, as though it is being lit from within. A value of 0 has no visible effect. A value of 100 makes the material look very bright. Emissive objects do not act as light sources. They do not cast light on other objects in the drawing.

Contrast: How shiny the surface appears. The lower the setting, the shinier the surface appears.

Texture Type: The texture of the material.

Texture Scale: The amount and size of the texturing.

Color: The color of the selected material. Clicking on this bar will bring up the color palette.

Add: Creates a custom material. You can set preferences for all of the material's properties.

Del: Deletes a material from the materials selection box.

Save: Saves created materials as separate files.

Retrieve: Retrieves a specified material file and inserts it into the selection box.