--- title: Applying materials to an asset framework: Reality Composer Pro role: article role_heading: Article path: realitycomposerpro/applying-materials-to-an-asset --- # Applying materials to an asset Assign and configure surface materials on 3D model assets in Reality Composer Pro. ## Overview Overview A material defines the surface properties of a rendered 3D object. Reality Composer Pro supports five material types: Physically Based, Unlit, Occlusion, Portal, and Shader Graph. The Inspector shows different properties based on which material is selected. Physically Based — Closely approximates the way light reflects off real-world objects, letting you quickly author realistic-looking surfaces without a Shader Graph. Unlit — Unlit materials do not respond to scene lighting. Their color appears exactly as specified, regardless of virtual or real-world illumination. Occlusion —Occlusion materials render as invisible while still occluding geometry behind them in the depth buffer. **Portal **— Portal materials work with the Portal component to render the contents of a separate world through a mesh surface, creating the visual effect of a window or doorway into another scene. Shader Graph — Lets you author fully custom looks using a node-based visual editor. Reality Composer Pro displays materials in the active scene hierarchy with a paintbrush icon, and in the Project Browser with a thumbnail. tip: If an imported USDZ file contains Shader Graph materials, Reality Composer Pro creates those as well. You can also create materials manually, either to change the appearance of an entity loaded from a USDZ file or to use PBR rendering with procedurally created entities. Apply a material to an asset Apply a material to an asset or entity through the Inspector, under the Material Slots section. In the Hierarchy, click an entity (such as a model). Alternatively, click an entity in the Viewport. When you select a Physically Based (PBR) material in the hierarchy view, its properties and settings open in the Inspector. There you can adjust properties such as Roughness, Opacity, and Emissive Color. In the Inspector, under Material Slots, click the material field next to Material. The field may be blank or set to default_material. Select a material from the list. Configure general material options Available options vary depending on the type of material. Shader Sets the material shader. Choose the type that best matches your authoring intent: Physically Based — Use for realistic, light-responsive surfaces such as metal, wood, or fabric. Occlusion — Use to hide objects while still displaying their shadows. Portal — Use to create windows or openings into another space. Unlit — Use for surfaces that should not respond to scene lighting, such as emissive surfaces or UI overlays. Shader Graph — Use to create fully custom material looks beyond the built-in presets. The visible options in this section vary depending on which Shader you select in the Shader drop-down menu. Face Culling Face culling optimizes rendering by discarding the hidden faces of a polygon. This option determines whether the shader displays front, back, or no faces. Options include Back, Front, or None. Material Contains a list of arguments that define the overall appearance of the material. Reads Depth (toggle) When toggled on, the material performs a depth test by reading the RealityKit depth buffer. Writes Depth (toggle) When toggled on, the material writes its depth into the RealityKit depth buffer. Configure physically based material options The following properties appear when you set Shader to Physically Based. Blend Mode Controls the transparency of an entity. Options are Opaque or Transparent. tip: Available options change depending on which Blend Mode you select. Opacity Scale Available when Blend Mode is set to Transparent. Sets how transparent the material is. A value of 0.0 makes the material and attached object fully transparent, and a value of 1.0 makes the material and attached object fully opaque. Opacity Texture Available when Blend Mode is set to Transparent. Base Color Texture Foundational image file that defines the flat, physical color of a surface without any lighting or shadow information. Determines the fundamental color of materials such as brick, wood, or cloth. Roughness Texture The texture that controls how much light scatters across a surface to make objects look polished and glossy, or dry, chalky, and matte. A value of 1.0 makes the material rough, and a value of 0.0 removes all roughness to make a smooth material. Metallic Texture A mask that controls how light reflects. It determines which parts of an object’s surface react like metal and which act like non-metals (such as wood, stone, or plastic). Normal Texture A texture that simulates fine surface detail by perturbing how light interacts with each point on a surface. Normal maps create the appearance of bumps, grooves, and ridges without adding geometry. Clearcoat Texture The transparent highlights that simulate a clear, shiny coating over an underlying material on an entity. Clearcoat Roughness Texture The degree to which an entity’s clear, shiny coating scatters light to create soft highlights. Emissive Texture The color of the light the entity emits. This makes a surface appear to glow or self-illuminate, regardless of surrounding light. Specular Texture A grayscale image that affects the intensity of light reflections on non-metallic surfaces to control how shiny or dull a material looks at different angles. Ambient Occlusion Texture Sets the degree of ambient lighting that the material receives to simulate soft shadows and subtle shading. Base Color Tint Base color tint for the selected material. You can select a color or use a texture file. Four preset types are also available: Display - P3 Linear Display - P3 sRGB Linear sRGB tip: If you define both a base color tint and a base color texture for the same material, the tint color tints the texture. Roughness Scale (0-1) Numerical value that controls how smooth or rough a material’s surface is, which determines how light scatters when it hits the surface. Metallic Scale (0-1) Numerical value that determines whether a material surface behaves as metal or a non-metal. A value of 0.0 removes any metallic attributes, and a value of 1.0 makes the material fully metallic. Opacity Threshold A threshold below which RealityKit ignores opacity. A setting of 0.0 means no additional masking occurs. If set above 0.0, the material renders areas where the Opacity is greater than the Opacity Threshold. Configure Shader Graph material options The following property appears when you set Shader to Shader Graph. Lighting Model Specifies the lighting model to use. Different sub-properties will be displayed depending on the lighting model selected. The Lighting Model selector is most useful when you have a Lit material and want to override specific rendering attributes without changing the surface output node. Unspecified - Unspecified lets RealityKit infer the lighting model from the surface output node in the graph. Lit - Lit produces standard PBR-style shading. Unlit - Unlit skips lighting and shows the surface color directly. Hair - Hair uses an anisotropic model tuned for hair strands. Clearcoat - Clearcoat adds a separate transparent specular layer on top of the base material, simulating coatings such as automotive paint or lacquer. tip: You can replace images, colors, or values for any of the PBR attributes with another image, color, or value of your choosing. Any changes you make to a material affect any entity bound to that material. ## See Also ### Materials - [Building materials in Reality Composer Pro](realitycomposerpro/building-materials-in-reality-composer-pro.md) - [Designing materials with Shader Graph](realitycomposerpro/designing-materials-with-shader-graph.md) - [Creating a procedural Shader Graph material](realitycomposerpro/creating-a-procedural-shader-graph-material.md)