Tutorial Home / Edit Appearances / Editing Materials

Once you've selected a material you can make changes to its properties with the Material Editor. Activate the Material Editor with the tab.

To make changes, adjust the intensity sliders or type a number between 0.0 and 1.0 into the corresponding text box.

To change the Diffuse, Specular and Emissive colours, place a tick in the boxes you wish to alter then select a colour from the colour wheel.

Firstly left click in the perspective (3D) window then select Single Viewport Mode

For simplicity this entire tutorial will be using only one viewport.

To take a better look at the model hold down the spacebar, left click and drag in the 3D window.

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Alternatively you can use the Rotate icon

For a more info on manipulating your view refer to the Cosmo Worlds Videos.

Zoom into the lens Notice how the model looks very faceted.

The keyboard shortcut for Zooming is:

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To smooth out the model firstly select all the objects in the scene. Select Menu > Select All or

+ A

In the Property Inspector click the Faceset Properties tab

Drag the Crease Angle slider towards Smooth until the number reads about 39.

Notice how the model is now smooth, yet we haven't added polygons. We've simply changed the way in which the existing polygons are rendered. This is what is called Gouroud Shading.

The camera is comprised of a number of separate objects. We need to select each one and assign a colour to it.

Left click to select the main camera body

The DynaBox object manipulator will appear, surrounding the object.

Select the Material Palette tab and choose metal from the drop-down list.

Select the aluminium material as shown.

You can assign materials to a number of objects at a time by holding down to multiple select.

Select the parts shown and then apply the same material as above.

Hint: You will have to manipulate your view using Zoom Rotate and Pan to gain access to some parts.

Note: the DynaBox only surrounds the last selected object. Previous objects in the current selection set are indicated by a blue bounding box.

Select the areas shown and apply the black material in the artdeco palette.

Apply the same black to the geometry you've just exposed then click Show All to unhide.

Hint: Hiding and showing objects is a good habit to get into. When your scenes become more complex, hiding objects will improve performance while you're developing.

We're now going to create a chrome material and apply it to the geometry shown (as well as the buttons on the back).

Adjust the material's properties to approximate the shininess of chrome.

Note: chrome is difficult to mimic accurately as it is almost 100% reflective and VRML does not support reflection maps.