Module: Add Colors and Textures

Materials are responsible for the colors of everything you see in a Unity scene. They all work together to bring color and flare 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 “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.

Time to create your first materials! In this Sandbox Lab, you will learn and practice the fundamentals of how to change the aesthetics of your models and environments.

In the sandbox lab, you’ll add customized materials to primitive shapes.

In this Sandbox Lab, you will improve the aesthetics of a plain white shed structure. To do so, you will need to:

1. Create three new colors (materials).
2. Rename each material and change its Albedo.
3. Apply each material to change the color of the shed’s walls, roof, and window.
4. Alter the metallic and smoothness parameters of the roof.
5. Change the render mode of the window to transparent.