Material Types
Every material has a type. Standard covers almost everything; the other types are for surfaces that need a material of their own. This page describes the settings of each type. To pick one, see Choosing a Material Type. The settings that all types except Fur share, the normal map and emission, are on the Materials page.
| Type | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Standard | Paint, wood, stone, tiles, plastic, fabric, ceramics, mirrors: everything that isn’t one of the types below. |
| Glass | Windows, drinking glasses, bottles and vases. |
| Metal | Gold, brass, copper, steel and other metals. |
| Water | Pools, ponds and lakes. |
| Car Paint | Car bodies and other painted metal, with metallic flakes under a clear coat. |
| Grass | Lawns, meadows and artificial turf, with real blades of grass. |
| Fur | Shag and pile rugs, sheepskin, faux fur and plush, with real strands. |
Videos
Section titled “Videos”Water, mirrors and glossy finishes turns a pool into Water with the Pool preset, and gives a mirror, glazed vases and a side table the Mirror, Glossy and Lacquered finishes of the Standard material. To follow along, download its scene, rayscaper-material-types.skp (5.3 MB): a small pool terrace. It works with the free version of Rayscaper.
Standard Material
Section titled “Standard Material”The material for almost every surface. Every SketchUp material starts as a Standard material, and so do the Poly Haven materials of the Asset Manager. Rayscaper materials and those of your own library keep the type they were saved with, like Water or Glass. It’s a PBR (physically based) material: it uses real-world values, so it looks right under any light. Scanned and downloaded PBR textures fit it directly.
Scanned fruit and wood: Standard materials with color, roughness and normal maps.
The Standard material settings.
Finish: sets the roughness, metallic, coating, sheen and translucency for a common finish in one click, and keeps the color and the opacity. A new material is Satin. As soon as you change one of those settings yourself, the finish shows Custom.
| Finish | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Matte | Plaster, unglazed terracotta, chalk paint, raw concrete: no visible reflections. |
| Satin | Eggshell paint, plastic, oiled wood: soft, blurry reflections. |
| Glossy | Gloss paint, polished stone, glazed tiles, shiny plastic: sharp reflections. |
| Lacquered | Varnished wood, lacquered furniture, glazed ceramics: a clear glossy coat on a satin base. |
| Fabric | Velvet, wool, upholstery: fully rough with a soft shine at the edges. |
| Sheer Fabric | Curtains, voile, linen blinds: a fabric that glows when the window behind it is bright. |
| Mirror | Mirrors and chrome: a perfect reflection, tinted by the color. |
A round mirror with the Mirror finish, in a frame of Brass metal.
Color: the base color, a color or an image. For a material from SketchUp it’s the color or texture of the SketchUp material.
Roughness: how smooth the surface is. 0% gives mirror-sharp reflections, 100% a completely matte surface. Use a roughness map for realistic variation across the surface.
Metallic: blends between a non-metal (0%) and a metal (100%). Real surfaces are one or the other, so use values in between only for transitions in a texture, like paint worn down to the metal. For metals with measured colors, use the Metal material.
A non-metal: the color is in the surface, the reflections are white.
Halfway.
A metal: the color is in the reflections, like gold.
Opacity: see Opacity.
Advanced
Section titled “Advanced”Expand Advanced for the layers on top of the material and the settings that most materials keep at their default. The Lacquered, Fabric and Sheer Fabric finishes set the coating, sheen and translucency for you, and every finish turns transmission and anisotropy off. Changing the coating, the sheen strength, the translucency, the transmission or the anisotropy switches the finish to Custom.
Transmission
Section titled “Transmission”Strength: how much light passes through the material. 0% is opaque, 100% transmits like glass. The Index of Refraction (IOR) under Specular controls how much the material bends the light. For windows, glasses and bottles, use the Glass material instead.
Translucency
Section titled “Translucency”Strength: how much light passes through a thin surface that is lit from behind, like a curtain in front of a window, a lampshade or a leaf. The light comes out on the other side softly scattered, so the surface glows, but you can’t see through it. 0% turns it off, 100% sends all of the diffuse light to the other side. Sheer curtains look right between 40% and 70%, a lampshade between 20% and 50%.
Opaque: the bulb inside the ball stays hidden.
The light of the bulb inside glows through the whole shell.
Translucency is not transparency. To also see the window through a thin voile, lower the Opacity a little (70% to 90%) as well. Model a curtain as a single surface: translucency is for thin materials, light that passes through a thick object, like wax or skin, isn’t simulated.
Coating
Section titled “Coating”A clear layer of varnish or lacquer on top of the material. It works best on a rough base, like car paint or varnished wood.
Strength: 0% turns the coating off, 100% applies it fully.
Roughness: how smooth the coating is. 0% gives sharp, glossy reflections, 100% soft, matte ones.
A soft shine at the edges, as on velvet and other fabrics with fine fibers.
Strength: 0% turns the sheen off, 100% gives a strong velvet-like edge.
Tint: the color of the sheen. White gives a neutral sheen.
Roughness: low values keep the sheen in a narrow band at the edges, high values spread it over the surface.
Specular
Section titled “Specular”Tint: the color of the reflections of a non-metal. White is physically accurate for almost every material, a color gives tinted reflections. These examples use a black base, so only the reflections show:
Index of Refraction (IOR): how strong the reflections are, especially when you look at the surface straight on, and how much a transmissive material bends the light. The default of 1.5 suits most materials, like plastic and glass. These examples use a dark, glossy material, where reflections show best:
Anisotropy
Section titled “Anisotropy”Stretches the highlights in one direction. Use it for brushed metal, hair, satin and other materials with a direction in their surface. It needs some roughness to show.
Strength: higher values stretch the highlights further.
Rotation: turns the direction of the stretching, from 0 to 360°, to align it with the grain of the material, for example the brushing direction of a steel panel.
The Standard material, setting by setting goes through the finishes, the color, roughness, metallic and opacity, the coating and the sheen on Rayscaper’s shader ball. It was recorded with an earlier version, where the coating and the sheen had a section of their own. They are now under Advanced. To follow along, download its scene, rayscaper-pbr-material.skp (0.9 MB): a small photo studio.
Glass Material
Section titled “Glass Material”For windows, drinking glasses, bottles, vases and water in a container. Glass reflects and refracts light like the real thing, and lets light through for shadows, so daylight reaches the rooms behind windows.
A carafe and a tumbler of glass.
The Glass material settings.
Preset: sets the index of refraction, roughness and Thin for a kind of glass, and keeps its color. Pick the closest one and adjust from there; as soon as you change one of these settings, the preset switches to Custom. A new Glass material is Clear.
| Preset | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Clear | Bottles, vases, drinking glasses and windows modeled with a thickness. |
| Window Pane | Windows modeled as a single face (Thin). |
| Lightly Frosted | Satin-etched glass that blurs what’s behind it, like lamp shades and cabinet doors. |
| Frosted | Sandblasted or privacy glass, like shower screens. |
| Crystal | Wine glasses and decanters of lead crystal, which reflect and bend the light more. |
| Acrylic | Plexiglass display cases, signs and furniture. |
| Water | Water in a glass, a carafe or a vase. For pools and ponds, use the Water material. |
| Diamond | Gems and jewelry. |
| Anti-Reflective | Picture frames and shop windows of museum glass, modeled as a single face, that barely reflect. |
For tinted glass, keep the preset and change the Color.
Color: the tint of the glass. Keep it white for clear glass. A color tints both the light passing through and the reflections.
Roughness: frosts the glass. Use 0% for clear glass and higher values for frosted, etched or privacy glass.
Thin: treats the glass as a pane without thickness. Turn it on for window panes and the glass of picture frames, which are usually modeled as a single face. Light passes straight through without bending. The pane still reflects as much as its IOR gives: about 8% when you look at it straight on, and more at a glancing angle. Keep it off for objects with real thickness, like bottles, glasses and aquariums. Roughness only blurs the reflections of thin glass; the view through it stays sharp. For frosted glass, model the pane with a thickness. Off by default.
A solid ball of glass that bends the light.
The ball is a thin glass bubble: the light passes straight through, only its reflections remain.
Advanced
Section titled “Advanced”Expand Advanced for the index of refraction, the shadows and the opacity of the glass.
Index of Refraction (IOR): how strongly the glass bends light, and so how much it distorts what’s behind it. Higher values bend more and reflect more. The default of 1.5 is window glass. Thin glass doesn’t bend light, so for it the IOR only sets how strongly it reflects.
| Material | IOR |
|---|---|
| Air | 1.0 |
| Ice | 1.31 |
| Water | 1.33 |
| Glass | 1.5 |
| Lead crystal | 1.6–1.7 |
| Ruby | 1.77 |
| Sapphire | 1.77 |
| Diamond | 2.42 |
Transparent Shadows: lets light pass through the glass, so it casts a light shadow instead of a dark one. Keep it on for windows, otherwise the rooms behind them stay too dark. On by default.
Opacity: see Opacity.
Metal Material
Section titled “Metal Material”Metals with their measured color and reflection. Choose the metal, and tint or roughen it if you like.
Brass candleholders with lit candles. The candle flames use emission.
The Metal material settings.
Metal: the metal: Aluminium, Brass, Chrome, Copper, Gold, Iron, Nickel, Platinum, Silver or Titanium. Gold is the default. A metal from an older scene that isn’t one of these, or one whose values you changed under Advanced, shows Custom and keeps its look.
Six of the metals, all with a roughness of 15%.
Tint: colors the metal, for anodized aluminium or tinted steel. White keeps the color of the metal.
Roughness: 0% is polished like a mirror, higher values give satin, brushed and weathered metal. Roughness can also be an image, a roughness map, for scratches, fingerprints or worn spots that are rougher than the rest. Dark areas of the map give smoother reflections, light areas rougher ones. To use a roughness map:
- Choose a Metal, such as Aluminium or Chrome.
- Click the image icon next to Roughness and select your roughness map.
- Click the sliders icon next to Roughness to open the texture editor and adjust the image settings.
Choosing another Metal keeps your roughness map and its settings, so you can compare metals without loading the map again.
Advanced
Section titled “Advanced”Expand Advanced for the measured values of the metal, brushed highlights and the opacity.
Metallic Index of Refraction (IOR) and Absorption Coefficient: how the metal reflects and absorbs light, per color channel (red, green, blue). Together they give the metal its color. Choosing a metal sets both, and changing them switches the metal to Custom. These are the values of the metals:
| Metal | Metallic IOR | Absorption Coefficient |
|---|---|---|
| Aluminium (Al) | (1.35, 0.97, 0.62) | (7.47, 6.40, 5.30) |
| Brass (Cu-Zn) | (0.44, 0.53, 1.09) | (3.70, 2.77, 1.83) |
| Chrome (Cr) | (2.02, 2.79, 2.02) | (3.86, 4.20, 3.86) |
| Copper (Cu) | (0.27, 0.68, 1.32) | (3.61, 2.62, 2.29) |
| Gold (Au) | (0.18, 0.42, 1.37) | (3.42, 2.35, 1.77) |
| Iron (Fe) | (2.91, 2.95, 2.58) | (3.09, 2.93, 2.77) |
| Nickel (Ni) | (1.99, 1.92, 1.73) | (4.21, 3.62, 2.94) |
| Platinum (Pt) | (2.38, 2.08, 1.85) | (4.27, 3.72, 3.14) |
| Silver (Ag) | (0.16, 0.15, 0.14) | (3.93, 3.19, 2.38) |
| Titanium (Ti) | (2.74, 2.54, 2.27) | (3.81, 3.43, 3.04) |
Anisotropy: stretches the highlights along the surface, like the fine grooves of brushed metal do. It needs some roughness to show.
Round, even highlights.
The highlights start to stretch.
Long streaks, like brushed steel.
Anisotropy Rotation: turns the direction of the streaks, from 0 to 360°.
Opacity: see Opacity.
Water Material
Section titled “Water Material”A material made for swimming pools, ponds, lakes, fountains, and other bodies of water in architectural scenes. Its surface reflects and bends light like real water. Rayscaper adds the waves, and the water gets more color where it is deeper. So a single flat face gives realistic water, without textures, normal maps or a water volume.
A courtyard pool rendered with the Water material. The deep end takes on more color than the steps, the mosaic floor warps with the waves, and the far side of the pool reflects the wall and sky.
The Water material settings.
Preset: sets the color, clarity and waves for a kind of water in one click. Start from the preset closest to your scene and adjust it from there. As soon as you change another setting, the preset switches to Custom. A new Water material also starts at Custom, with generic values, so pick a preset first: Pool is a good start.
| Preset | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Pool | Clear, calm swimming pool water with small ripples. |
| Pond | Murky green garden ponds. |
| Lake | Natural open water with a slow, large swell. |
| Windy | Choppy water with strong waves and lots of small ripples. |
| Tropical | Very clear turquoise water, like a resort pool or a shallow lagoon. |
| Reflecting Pool | Dark, nearly still water that mirrors its surroundings. |
| Spa | Agitated hot tub or whirlpool water with small, busy waves. |
The examples below start from the same pool and change one setting at a time.
Water Tint: the color the water takes on as light travels through it. Shallow water shows only a hint of the tint, while deep water shows its full color. The tint doesn’t color the reflections on the surface, only what you see through the water. Use a light aqua for pools, green or brown for ponds, and a deeper blue for lakes and the sea.
Clarity: how far light travels through the water before it reaches the full Water Tint, from 0.1 m to 50 m. Low values give murky water where the bottom quickly fades into the tint color. High values give crystal-clear water where you can see the floor of even a deep pool. Because Clarity is a distance, it works together with the depth of your pool: 2 m of clarity looks clear in a shallow pool but hazy in a deep one. The examples below use a stronger blue tint to make the difference easy to see.
Wave Strength: how rough the water is, from 0 to 1. At 0 the water is perfectly calm and behaves like a flat pane of glass. Higher values distort the view of the pool floor more and break up the reflections on the surface. The size and direction of the waves come from the preset, or from Wave Size and Wave Direction under Advanced.
Advanced
Section titled “Advanced”Expand Advanced for the settings that the presets set for you: how cloudy the water is, the shape of the waves and the reflections.
Turbidity: how much suspended matter, like algae or silt, is floating in the water, from 0 to 1. Turbid water scatters tinted light back toward the viewer and hides submerged objects, even in shallow areas. Keep this close to 0 for pools and increase it for ponds, rivers, and other natural water.
Wave Size: the distance between the crests of the main swell, from 0.05 m to 10 m. Small values give short ripples, like a pool with a light breeze or a fountain. Large values give the long, rolling swell of a lake. The examples below turn Wave Detail off so you only see the swell.
Wave Detail: adds small ripples on top of the main swell, from 0 to 1. Low values give a smooth, rolling surface. High values give agitated, wind-blown water.
Wave Direction: the direction in which the waves travel, from 0° to 360°. At 0° the waves travel along the red axis of the object that holds the water face, at 90° along its green axis. The downwind side of each wave is the steeper one. This setting has no visible effect when Wave Strength is 0.
Surface Roughness: blurs the reflections on the water surface, from 0 to 0.3. Use 0 for mirror-sharp reflections on still water, and a small value to soften reflections on a breezy day. The view through the water blurs only slightly, so the pool floor stays readable.
Reflection: the maximum strength of the reflections, from 0 to 1. Like real water, the surface reflects little when you look straight down and more at grazing angles; this setting limits how strong those grazing reflections can get. The default of 0.45 keeps the floor of the pool visible across the whole surface. Use 1 to let calm water turn into a mirror toward the horizon, as with a reflecting pool.
Car Paint Material
Section titled “Car Paint Material”A material for car bodies and other painted metal: a base coat in the color of the paint, metallic flakes in it, and a clear coat on top that reflects like glass. Up close the flakes sparkle. From further away they blend into the bright highlight of a metallic paint.
A sports car with the Metallic finish. See Car Rendering for how to light and render a car.
Finish: sets the flakes and the clear coat for a kind of paint in one click. The finishes keep the color of your material. Change a setting and the finish shows Custom.
| Finish | What it gives |
|---|---|
| Solid | Paint without flakes, like most whites, reds and the colors of company vans. |
| Metallic | Fine silver flakes: sparkle up close, a bright highlight from a distance. The default. |
| Pearl | Flakes that turn the color warmer when you look along the body. |
| Sparkle | Large flakes that sparkle from every angle, like custom metal flake paint. |
| Satin | Metallic paint under a clear coat that isn’t glossy, like a matte wrap. |
Color: the color of the paint. Pick a darker color than you expect: the clear coat adds its reflection on top, so a color of 5% to 20% already looks like a deep blue or green.
Flakes: how much of the paint is metallic flakes, from 0 to 1. 0 is paint without flakes; higher values give a more metallic look.
Flake Size: the size of the flakes, from 0.02 to 2 mm. Small flakes give a smooth metallic shine, large flakes sparkle in close-ups.
Coat Roughness: how glossy the clear coat is, from 0 to 1. 0 gives the mirror-like coat of a polished car, higher values a satin or matte finish.
Flakes & Coat
Section titled “Flakes & Coat”Expand Flakes & Coat for the details of the flakes, a color that changes with the angle, and the clear coat.
Flakes
- Flake Color: tints the flakes, which take the color of the paint. White adds no tint.
- Spread: how far the flakes tilt, from 0 to 1. Low values give one strong highlight that gets darker towards the edges of the body. High values make the flakes sparkle at every angle.
- Flake Roughness: from 0, where every flake is a tiny mirror, to 1, a soft sparkle.
- Base Roughness: the roughness of the paint between the flakes, under the clear coat.
Color Flip
- Flip Color: the color the paint turns to when you look along the body, at a grazing angle.
- Strength: how far the paint turns to the flip color towards the edges of the body, from 0 to 1. 0 is off. A light, warm flip color gives a pearl paint, a different hue a paint that changes color.
Clear Coat
- Tint: colors the clear coat, for candy paint over silver flakes. White is a clear coat.
- Orange Peel: the slight waviness of a sprayed clear coat, which makes the reflections ripple, from 0 to 1. 0 is a perfectly smooth, polished coat. Keep it low (0.3 is the default), or the reflections look wobbly.
Grass Material
Section titled “Grass Material”A material for lawns, meadows and other grass. Paint a face with it and Rayscaper grows real blades of grass on that face when it renders: thousands of clumps of individual blades that catch the light, cast shadows and glow against a low sun. Nothing is added to your SketchUp model, so it stays as light as before: in SketchUp the face keeps its plain color.
A garden lawn with the Grass material on both sides of a gravel path.
Preset: sets every setting of the grass for a kind of grass in one click. The lawns and the meadow keep the color of your material; Dry Grass sets it to straw and Artificial Turf to the green of turf, unless the color is a texture. A new Grass material starts as a Mowed Lawn. As soon as you change another setting, the preset switches to Custom.
| Preset | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Mowed Lawn | A freshly mowed lawn, cut at 4 cm, with mowing stripes. |
| Garden Lawn | A lawn a week or two after mowing, with blades that lie over and worn patches. |
| Meadow | Long, unmown grass with flowering stems in patches. |
| Dry Grass | Grass at the end of a dry summer: straw colored, partly collapsed, with seeds. |
| Artificial Turf | Even plastic fibers on a dark infill, for terraces, roofs and sports fields. |
Color: the color of the grass and of the ground between the blades. The blades vary around it, with younger and older blades, dry ones and their tips, so a single green gives a lively lawn. With an image texture that is mapped with UV coordinates, as SketchUp maps its textures, every blade takes the color of the image where it grows, so a worn path or mowing pattern painted into the texture shows in the grass. With box mapping, the grass takes the average color of the image.
Height: the mean height of the grass, from 1 cm to 1 m: about 4 cm for a mowed lawn, 30 cm and more for a meadow.
Height Variation: how much the height differs from clump to clump, from 0 to 1. 0 is an evenly mowed lawn, 1 wild grass.
Density: how densely the grass grows, from 0.1 to 2, relative to the preset. 1 is the density of the preset, 0.5 half as many clumps. A lawn has about 200 clumps per square meter and a meadow about 70, so a large lawn holds millions of blades. Rayscaper renders them as copies of a few clumps, which keeps them light. But one object holds at most about a million clumps. When a large lawn in a single group needs more, its grass grows less densely there, and the editor says so. Split a very large lawn into several groups.
Below these settings, the editor shows how many clumps and blades grew on the faces painted with the material. The status bar under the render counts the blades of all Grass materials, next to the triangles.
Advanced
Section titled “Advanced”Expand Advanced for the settings that the presets set for you, in three groups: the blades, their color and how the grass grows.
Grass Type: the structure of the grass, which the other settings don’t set. It gives the shape of the blades and clumps, the kinds of blades and how they spread:
- Lawn: soft, bent and fallen blades.
- Mowed: cut tips.
- Meadow: tall blades and seed heads.
- Dry: straw.
- Artificial: even plastic fibers.
Blade Width: the width of a blade at its root, from 1 to 15 mm. It tapers to the tip. Lawn grass is 2 to 4 mm wide.
Bend: how far the blades droop and curve over towards their tips, from 0 to 1.
Direction Randomness: how far the blades lean away from straight up, each its own way, from 0 to 1.
Tip Color: the color the blades turn to towards their tips, like the dry tips of freshly cut grass.
Color Variation: how much the hue and brightness differ from clump to clump and from blade to blade, from 0 to 1.
Dryness: the share of dry, straw colored blades, from 0 to 1. 1 is grass at the end of a dry summer.
Roughness: from 0 for glossy blades to 1 for fully matte ones. Glossier blades show more of the sheen of a lawn in low sunlight, and stronger mowing stripes. The ground between the blades always stays matte.
Translucency: how much light shines through the blades, from 0 to 1, which makes grass glow against a low sun.
A meadow against the morning sun: the light shines through the blades.
Ground Darkening: how much darker than the color the ground between the blades renders, from 0 to 1, as it lies in their shade. Raise it when the ground shows through as pale patches.
Patchiness: patches of 1 to 3 m where the grass grows thinner and duller, as on a real lawn, from 0 to 1.
Flattened: the share of clumps that lie over in groups, as foot traffic, rain or wind leave them, from 0 to 1.
Seed Heads: flowering stems above the leaves, for meadows and long grass, from 0 to 1. 0 has none.
Mowing Stripes: the width of the light and dark stripes a mower leaves, from 0 to 5 m. 0 has no stripes. The stripes are light reflecting off grass that the mower laid one way and the other, so they show best when you look along them, towards the sun or away from it. Lower the Translucency for stronger stripes: light through the blades evens them out.
Wind: how far the wind lays all the grass over the same way, from 0 to 1, further in gusts. 0 is still. Use it for long grass on open land, a dune or a savanna.
Wind Direction: the way the wind lays the grass, in degrees: 0 is the red axis (X) of the group or component, 90 the green axis (Y). Wind Direction has no effect without Wind.
Seed: picks another random pattern of the grass, with the same settings.
Up close, every blade is there: a garden lawn seen from knee height.
Fur Material
Section titled “Fur Material”A material for shag and pile rugs, sheepskin, faux fur throws, plush cushions and the coat of an animal. Paint a face with it and Rayscaper grows real strands on that face when it renders: hundreds of thousands of strands per square meter. Each strand catches the light, casts a soft shadow and falls over the edge of a rug. As with the Grass material, nothing is added to your SketchUp model, so in SketchUp the face keeps its plain color.
A cream shag rug, a sheepskin pillow and a rust plush pillow, all of the Fur material.
Preset: sets every setting of the fur for a kind of fur in one click. The presets keep the color of your material, except Animal Fur and Long Hair, which color the strands like the coat of an animal or human hair and turn a plain color to white. A new Fur material starts as a Shag Rug. As soon as you change another setting, the preset switches to Custom.
| Preset | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Shag Rug | Long, thick cut yarn that falls in all directions. |
| Short Pile Rug | A dense cut pile rug of about a centimeter, standing up. |
| Sheepskin | Long, wavy wool in soft locks. |
| Faux Fur | Long, fine and silky strands combed in one direction, for throws and pillows. |
| Plush | A short, dense and soft pile, like a plush toy, velour or a teddy fabric. |
| Animal Fur | The sleek coat of an animal, colored by its melanin, lying in one direction. |
| Long Hair | Long, straight hair for the scalp of a head, combed back and hanging down. |
Color: the color of the strands. Pick the color the rug has, as for any other material: Rayscaper compensates for the light that bounces from strand to strand, which makes a coat look lighter than a flat face. The strands vary a little around the color and are darker at their roots. With an image texture that is mapped with UV coordinates, as SketchUp maps its textures, every strand takes the color of the image at its root, so a patterned rug keeps its pattern. With box mapping, the fur takes the average color of the image.
A short pile rug colored by an image texture: every strand takes the color of the pattern at its root.
Length: the mean length of the strands, from 2 mm to 50 cm: under a centimeter for plush, 1 to 2 cm for a pile rug, 4 to 6 cm for a shag rug or sheepskin, 20 cm and more for long hair.
Density: how many strands grow per square centimeter, from 1 to 600. Thicker strands need fewer to cover the surface: a shag rug of thick yarn has about 15, a fine faux fur over 100. More strands take longer to render.
Thickness: the diameter of a strand at its root, from 0.02 to 5 mm. The yarn of a rug is about a millimeter, wool a few tenths, the hair of an animal a tenth or less.
Curl: how far the strands curl and wave, from 0 for straight strands to 1 for the tight locks of a sheepskin.
Direction: from strands standing straight up (0) to strands lying along the surface (1).
Shine: from matte wool (0) to the sharp highlights of silky hair (1).
Below these settings, the editor shows how many strands grew on the faces painted with the material. One object holds a limited number of strands. When an object needs more at this density, its fur grows less densely there, and the editor says so. Split a very large rug into several groups, or lower the Density.
Up close, every strand is there: the yarn of a shag rug falls over in tufts.
Advanced
Section titled “Advanced”Expand Advanced for the settings that the presets set for you, in two groups: the strands and their color.
Length Variation: how much the length differs from strand to strand, from 0 for an evenly cut pile to 1.
Tip Thickness: the thickness at the tip relative to the root, from 0 for strands that taper to a point like hair to 1 for cut yarn.
Clumping: how far the strands gather in tufts towards their tips, from 0 to 1, like the yarn of a shag rug or the locks of a sheepskin.
Frizz: small random kinks along the strands, from 0 to 1.
Gravity: how far long strands droop over under their weight, from 0 to 1. On a floor they fall over the way they lean, on a wall or the side of a body they hang down. Hair longer than about 10 cm falls over the curve of a head rather than standing off it.
Comb Random: every tuft leans its own way, like a shag rug. Turn it off to comb the strands in one direction with Comb Direction, in degrees. 0 is along the red axis, 90 along the green axis. On a wall or a curved body, the strands follow this direction along the surface. Model an animal with its head towards the red axis and comb it at 180 degrees, so its coat runs from head to tail. Fur combed one way shows a sheen that changes as you walk around it, like a faux fur throw or the coat of an animal.
Seed: picks another random pattern of the strands, with the same settings.
Coloring: Dyed takes the color as it is, for rugs, faux fur and plush. Natural colors the strands by their melanin, the pigment of real hair and fur, and tints them with the color:
- Melanin: from white and blond (0) to brown and black (1).
- Redness: from brown and black (0) to red and ginger (1).
Root Darkening: how much darker the strands are at their root, from 0 to 1, as they lie in the shade of the coat.
Tip Color and Tip Amount: the color the strands turn to towards their tips, and how far, from 0 for none to 1, like the frosted tips of a dyed faux fur or the light tips of a coat.
Roughness: how soft and diffuse a strand looks around its axis, from 0 for smooth hair to 1 for wool.
Color Randomness: how much the brightness and hue differ from strand to strand, from 0 to 1.
Credits
Section titled “Credits”The examples on this page use CC0 models, textures and HDRIs from Poly Haven.