Texturing & materials · Beginner

Material

The settings that decide what a 3D surface is made of

What is a material in 3D?

A material is the set of properties that tells the renderer what a surface is made of: its color, how shiny or rough it is, whether it is metal, glass or skin, and whether it glows. Textures often feed a material, but the material decides how light reacts to them.

Think of it like this

If the mesh is a statue’s shape, the material is the choice to cast it in bronze, carve it in marble or mold it in plastic.

Where it fits in a 3D project

  1. Create
  2. Surface
  3. Rig
  4. Animate
  5. Render
  6. Export

Surface: Giving the shape its color and material: UVs, textures and shaders.

Base colorNormalRoughnessMetallicOcclusionMaterial
The base color map is one of several texture maps a material combines.

How a material works

  1. 01You assign a material to a mesh, or to parts of it.
  2. 02You set values or plug in textures for color, roughness, metalness and more.
  3. 03A shader uses those inputs to work out how light bounces at each point.

Material vs texture

PropertyMaterialTexture
What it isA recipe of surface propertiesAn image
JobDecides how light reactsSupplies detail to one property
Works aloneYes, with plain valuesNo, it needs a material

A texture is an ingredient; the material is the recipe that uses it.

Where a material is used

  • Making metal, glass, fabric and skin look believable
  • Swapping product colors and finishes in visualization
  • Keeping one consistent look across a scene

Beginner tip

Few real surfaces are perfectly smooth. A little roughness variation, even a subtle texture, makes a material read as real instead of plastic.

Material in Morphic

Models made in the 3D tab of Morphic for Blender arrive with their materials attached, so you can render them straight away or adjust them in Blender’s material settings.

See Morphic for Blender

Terms related to a material

Material FAQ

What is the difference between a material and a shader?
A shader is the program that calculates how light hits a surface. A material is a set of inputs for that shader: the colors, numbers and textures you choose. Many materials can share one shader.
What is a PBR material?
A material built on physically based rendering rules, usually with base color, roughness, metallic and normal maps. Because it follows real-world physics, it looks right under different lighting and in different apps.
Can one model have several materials?
Yes. You can assign different materials to different faces, such as metal for a watch case and glass for its face. In games, each extra material adds a little render cost.

Updated October 29, 2026 · Browse all 3D terms