Materials

Materials

The Materials panel lists every material in the document and edits its color, finish, transparency, texture and bump. It is the workshop behind the scenes: Apply Design & Render Materials dresses the whole piece in RhinoArtisan’s jewelry presets with one click — this panel is where you go to tune one of those materials, or to build something the presets don’t cover.

Creating a material

Add material offers a type for every job — the ones that matter on a jewelry render first:

• Metal — physically correct metals; the base of every shank and setting.
• Gem — refraction, dispersion and color for stones.
• Glass — transparency with an IOR, for enamel windows and crystal.
• Emission — a surface that emits light; handy for backlit product shots.
• Physically Based (PBR) — the full modern material, and the one to use with downloaded PBR texture sets: Create Physically Based material from texture files builds it straight from the images (or a .zip set) and wires every map for you.
• Blend / Double Sided — combine two materials, or give the inside of a surface a different finish than the outside.
• Plus Custom, Paint, Picture, Plaster, Plastic and More types… for everything else.

You can also Import from material library (.rmtl files) or Choose existing to start from a material already in the document.

Managing the list

• The search box filters by name, notes or tags — tags are gathered from the content in the document, and the tag list is fully keyboard-driven.
• Corner icons on each thumbnail show the material’s status: used by objects, used by the current selection, or missing an image file. Saving with Save textures enabled embeds images in the .3dm so nothing goes missing when the file travels.

Every material type and setting is documented in the Rhino help.