The realistic material

The first and default material type is realistic. It is energetically equilibrated.

The realistic material panel

The energy preservation model

The shading model uses three basic inputs:

These three inputs are involved in the energy preservation rule: the sum of the diffusion + reflection + transmission terms is always lower than or equal to 1.

Diffusion, reflection and transmission

More parameters influencing the reflection effect are available like glossiness and IOR (index of refraction).

Increasing the glossiness from 0 to 1

Bump channel

The material also contains:

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Adding bump texture

Back diffuse and translucency

Two more channels are available for plants only:

These two channels are very useful to render plant leafs.

Plant leafs with back diffuse and translucency

Masked material

The material can be defined as masked. In this case, the transmission texture is used as a mask. A property allows to set the alpha threshold over which the geometry is masked.

Decal material

The material can toggle the "decal" check box in its properties. Decal materials are a specific type of materials designed to be applied over other opaque objects. For instance, they're used for road surface markings as explained here: Roads.

Transparency and masking behavior

The realistic material has several data channels such as the transmission, back diffusion and translucency that may trigger some specific behaviors depending on the way the material is used. This short paragraph will explain all cases.

A material can be applied to Plants or to Geometries. Depending on the targeted object, the behavior will differ:

When applying a material to a geometry:

When applying a material to a plant: