Introduction to Materials

Materials are responsible for the colors of everything you see in a Unity scene. They all work together to bring color and flair to your models and thus can be thought of as the skin of your assets. Models typically come with their own materials, but you can also make your own materials to customize these models.

To better understand materials, review the scene above from the Unity Create Demo “Book of the Dead”. Custom materials were crafted to create rocks, foliage, bark, sticks, and more.

Each 3D model is initially made with a standard grey color. Once the object has the right structure and shape, modelers add materials to these models to make them photorealistic and increase the level of realism/immersion in the scene.

A huge benefit of Unity is its flexibility in changing and customizing these materials in real-time. To assess what another material would like on a particular surface, you can add or replace a new material at runtime, in VR or in the editor.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to:

1. Create custom materials in Unity
2. Apply materials to GameObjects