AR Works

Documentation

Materials

Materials control how a 3D model's surfaces look - their colour, shininess, texture and transparency. AR Works has a shared material library you build in the Materials tab and assign to model surfaces.

Note

Materials apply to 3D models. Images, videos and built-in shapes get their look from their own settings (a shape uses the colour in its Inspector).

The material library

Open the Materials tab in the bottom panel. The left rail lists your materials - create, rename, duplicate and delete them there. A material can be reused on many models; edit it once and every model using it updates.

A material is a small node graph feeding a Principled surface.

Building a material

A material is a small node graph, similar to the logic editor. The Output node is fed by a Principled node - the main surface - whose inputs you can drive with other nodes:

  • Principled - base colour, metallic, roughness (shininess), emission (glow), and opacity.
  • Image Texture - use an imported image as the surface.
  • UV Transform - offset, scale and rotate a texture.
  • Color and Value - constant colour and number inputs.
  • Mix - blend two inputs together.

Drag a wire from one node's output dot to a matching input dot. If a setup can't be built, a small amber badge explains why.

Assigning a material to a model

  1. Select a model object.
  2. In the Inspector, each of the model's material slots has a dropdown. Pick one of your materials to replace the model's own, or leave it on Original.

Tip

Slot names come from the model file. If they don't appear yet, give the model a moment to finish loading in the viewport.