---
title: Material
framework: realitykit
role: symbol
role_heading: Protocol
path: realitykit/material
---

# Material

A type that describes the material aspects of a mesh, like color and texture.

## Declaration

```swift
protocol Material
```

## Mentioned in

Applying realistic material and lighting effects to entities

## Overview

Overview In RealityKit, a material defines the surface properties of a 3D model. It specifies how RealityKit renders the entity, including its color and whether it’s shiny or reflective. A ModelEntity may have one material that defines the way RealityKit renders the entire entity, or it may have several that define the look of different parts of the model. RealityKit provides several different material structures for different types of rendering, including PhysicallyBasedMaterial, which is a versatile material capable of simulating real-world objects in a highly realistic manner, and UnlitMaterial, which RealityKit draws with no lighting effects or shadows. If you import a model from a USDZ file, RealityKit automatically creates one or more PhysicallyBasedMaterial instances from the material properties contained in the file.

## Topics

### Identifying a material

- [name](realitykit/material/name.md)

### Type Aliases

- [Material.Color](realitykit/material/color.md)
- [Material.Parameters](realitykit/material/parameters.md)

## Relationships

### Conforming Types

- [CustomMaterial](realitykit/custommaterial.md)
- [LightmapComponent.FinalShadedColorBakeMaterial](realitykit/lightmapcomponent/finalshadedcolorbakematerial.md)
- [OcclusionMaterial](realitykit/occlusionmaterial.md)
- [PhysicallyBasedMaterial](realitykit/physicallybasedmaterial.md)
- [PortalMaterial](realitykit/portalmaterial.md)
- [ShaderGraphMaterial](realitykit/shadergraphmaterial.md)
- [SimpleMaterial](realitykit/simplematerial.md)
- [UnlitMaterial](realitykit/unlitmaterial.md)
- [VideoMaterial](realitykit/videomaterial.md)

## See Also

### Material types

- [Material.Color](realitykit/material/color.md)
- [Material.Parameters](realitykit/material/parameters.md)
- [MaterialParameterTypes](realitykit/materialparametertypes.md)
- [MaterialParameters](realitykit/materialparameters.md)
- [MaterialColorParameter](realitykit/materialcolorparameter.md)
- [MaterialScalarParameter](realitykit/materialscalarparameter.md)