LuxRender Materials
Views
Personal tools
From LuxRender Wiki
LuxRender supports a variety of physically based material models. The materials vary in the way incoming light is reflected on the surface (and/or transmitted through it).
Typically, materials can be adjusted by changing their colour, assigning textures (either bitmap or procedural) and bump maps and setting roughness and displacement values, but the exact options depend on the material.
This page describes all material types and their settings. In addition to the basic material types, LuxRender features mix and null materials. Their use is explained at the end of this page.
 matte |
 mattetranslucent |
 substrate |
 metal |
 shinymetal |
 plastic |
 carpaint |
 glass |
 roughglass |
 mirror |
Contents |
material setup
LuxRender's materials can be configured by specifying colours or textures to be used on various channels. Each channel represents a particular material characteristic. Which channels are available depends on the material type.
diffuse channel
The diffuse channel defines the basic colour of non-transparant objects.
specular channel
The specular channel defines the reflection colour.
transmission channel
The transmission channel defines the colour of light that is shining through a transparent or translucent material.
bump maps
Bump mapping is the process of locally redefining surface shading based on a texture, without changing the actual geometry. This way, one can create a lot of surface detail without using unnessecarily complex models.
As opposed to the diffuse, specular and transmission channels, bump maps just use the brightness of any texture, not the colour value.
displacement
Displacement modifies an object's surface geometry based on a texture. Optionally, the object surface can be subdivided, resulting in a more detailed shape.
alpha maps
Alpha maps define parts of a surface to be transparent. In LuxRender, this effect is achieved by using a mix material with one of the sub-materials being a null material.
material types
matte
description
The matte material scatters light evenly in all directions and consequently appears as a rough surface without any shiny reflections. It is very efficient to render, easy to configure and a good starting material for new scenes.
The matte material can either use a Lambertian Diffuse BRDF or an Oren-Nayar Diffuse BRDF (for more advanced uses).
use
All rough surfaces like matte paint, interior walls, plaster and clay.
channels
- diffuse: the reflection colour
mattetranslucent
description
The mattetranslucent material is a material in which some light shines through while another part gets reflected. Like the matte material, its surface is rough so there are no shiny reflections.
The material can either use a Lambertian Diffuse BRDF or an Oren-Nayar Diffuse BRDF (for more advanced uses).
use
Useful for rough surfaces which also appear translucent such as for example cloth, textile and lamp covers. They can also be very useful in scenarios where area lights (mesh emitters) are placed behind them, for example in LCD screens.
channels
- diffuse: the reflection colour
- transmission: the transmission colour
substrate
description
The substrate material is a basic glossy material. It is fairly efficient to render.
This material implements a fresnel blended (Ashikmin/Shirley) glossy BRDF with a diffuse substrate.
use
This material represents a surface with a glossy coating over it, such as a wood with a laquered finish. It is ideal for modelling shiny wooden floors and lacquered objects, but can also be used for certain types of coated plastics and metals.
channels
- diffuse: The reflection colour of the underlying substrate diffuse component
- specular: The reflection colour of the glossy specular coated component
- roughness: A roughness value to define the glossiness of the specular component. (1.0 = rough/diffuse - 1000000 = very shiny/near specular). Roughness can be isotropic (equal in all directions) or anisotropic.
shinymetal
description
The shinymetal material is a material that represents metals and other conductive materials. It is fairly efficient to render.
It implements a glossy specular BRDF using a fresnel for conductors, with configurable specular and glossy reflection.
use
This material models the surface of conducting materials. It can be used to create custom metals and related materials.
Note: the metal material which follows allows to use measured data files or inbuilt pre-sets of common metals.
channels
- reflection: The reflection colour of the specular component
- specular: The reflection colour of the glossy specular component
- roughness: A roughness value to define the glossiness of the specular component. (1.0 = rough/diffuse - 1000000 = very shiny/near specular). Roughness can be isotropic (equal in all directions) or anisotropic.
metal
description
The metal material uses measured data to accurately render various metals. Presets for gold, copper, aluminium, amorphous carbon and silver are provided, but the material also accepts user provide n/k spectral data files in the sopra format. It is fairly efficient to render.
This material implements a glossy specular BRDF using a fresnel for conductors, using measured n/k data values.
use
This material models a number common metal surfaces. If you happen to have n/k data for other conducting materials, you can use them too.
Use the shinymetal material instead if you want to manually define a conductive material.
channels
- roughness: A roughness value to define the glossiness of the specular component. (1.0 = rough/diffuse - 1000000 = very shiny/near specular). Both isotropic and anisotropic roughness are supported.
plastic
description
The plastic material is suitable for rendering plastic. It is fairly efficient to render.
The material implements a diffuse/glossy specular BRDF using a dielectric fresnel.
use
This material model surface of dielectric (or non-conductive) materials. It is ideal for modelling various types of non-transparent plastics and related materials, leather surfaces, non translucent organic skins and plant leaves.
channels
- diffuse: The reflection colour of the diffuse component
- specular: The reflection colour of the glossy specular component
- roughness: A roughness value to define the glossiness of the specular component (1.0 = rough/diffuse - 1000000 = very shiny/near specular). Roughness can be isotropic (equal in all directions) or anisotropic.
carpaint
description
The carpaint material consists of a number of presets that are based on actual light measurements carried out on car paint. It is fairly efficient to render. Included measured carpaint presets are: blue matte, blue, white, 2k acrylac, bmw339, opel titan, polaris silber and ford f8.
use
This material models various types of measured car paints. It allows using several presets of popular car paints. In future releases it will also be possible to modify the channels and layers manually.
channels
All information is stored in the presets; there are no channels to modify.
roughglass
This material can be used to make glossy translucent objects like frosted glass, translucent window curtains etc.
glass
The glass material can be used to make objects out of glass, transparent plastics, etc. For good results, when using a different transmission or reflection colour than pure white (fully transparent glass), make sure both colours are roughly equal in intensity.
mirror
The mirror material is a simple, easy and efficient way to create perfect specular mirrors in a scene.
mix and null materials
mix
description
The mix material mixes two sub-materials. The mixing amount can either be a constant value or modulated by a texture.
use
The mix material can be used to create materials that are a blend of two other materials.Using the null material as one of its submaterials, the mix material can also be used for alpha mapping. When using textures to modulate the mapping, very complex materials can be created.
The material is stackable; using mix materials in the submaterial slots makes it possible to combine arbitrarily many materials.
channels
- amount: The amount to mix between the 2 submaterials. (0.0 = first submaterial only, 1.0 = second submaterial only, 0.5 = equal mix)
Tip: when using solid procedural textures as the mix amount, use a value of 1.0 to modulate fully between both materials.
null
A null material is a material that is completely invisible. When used in a mix material, it can make a material locally transparent.
special materials (not mixable)
portal
Portals are mesh objects with the portal material assigned, that allow the user to indicate where the render engine should find environment light sources. In scenes where light is shining through small openings (like interiors), portals can increase the efficiency of the rendering process significantly.
To create an exit portal, just assign the portal material to a mesh object consisting of faces that cover openings where light should enter or exit, like windows. In order for the portals to function, their normals should be pointing inward.
By their nature, objects indicated as exit portal will not be visible in the rendering.
light
Mesh objects can be converted into emitters by assigning a light material to them. Light materials have a colour and a gain setting for their intensity. They can be made to belong to a certain light group, which in future versions of LuxRender will help adjust light intensity during the rendering process.
boundvolume
...TODO...