Car Paint Model

This model represents a material that provides the visual qualities to a car's paint features. It allows for selecting and editing:

• Environment Mapping

• Normal Mapping

• Base Coat Color and Roughness

• Clear Coat Color and Roughness

• Metallicness

• and Shadow Sensitivity.

All these Attributes are described in greater detail below.

Attributes

Material

Material

This Attribute provides the Name of the Material as well as the Shading model type. It also sets the Alpha value if it is toggled on.

The Alpha channel is additional to the RGB channels and adds a kind of transparency to the object by mixing the background and foreground colors. For example, if the Alpha value is set to 0.5, then this would result in a 50% mix of the object and its background, providing a semi-translucent quality.

Environment Map

Environment Map

This enables the user to set a Texture which reflects the environment around an Object, meaning that the Object reflects the surface surrounding it (whether that be the background, another Object, or both combined.).

Initially, there is only the Attribute Overwrite Env. which is toggled off by default. If it is toggled on, all of the other Attributes are revealed.

Environment Map is the desired Texture to be used (a equirectangular or cubemap Texture of type PNG, JPG, EXR, or HDR).

Tint provides the color of the tint. The Texture’s RGB channels (not alpha) are then multiplied by the chosen tint.

Exposure determines how bright the Texture should be with a value from 0 to infinity.

Rotation sets the beginning of the image of the provided Texture to be "delayed" in the x or direction, moving it from left to right. The resulting "cut off" piece wraps around to the start of the image. Its range is from 0 degrees to 360 degrees.

Tilt sets the beginning of the image of the provided Texture to be "delayed" in the y or direction, moving it from bottom to top. The resulting "cut off" piece wraps around to the start of the image. Its range is from -90 degrees to 90 degrees.

Projection Height is where the ‘point of visualization’ starts. If set to 50%, this would be halfway from the bottom of the image and it would display upwards from there. To see a visual example of this, please refer to the video linked here.

Normals

Normals

A normal is a line perpendicular to the surface of some object. Normal mapping distorts these normals and simulates a surface with light and shadow, even if the object surface itself is flat. This is only possible with a light source. The Normal Map sets this surface and Use Normal Map toggles it on and off.

Base Coat

Base Coat

Albedo is the base diffuse color of the car.

Specular is the point of reflection of the light source.

Roughness determines how rough an object is, limiting or strengthening reflectivity.

Metallic determines how much the surface simulates a metal-like quality, appearing shinier and harder or rougher and duller.

Clear Coat

Clear Coat

The Albedo here is the color of the glossy finish of a car, which sits at the top layer as a color that one can see through.

Specular is the point of reflection of the light source.

Roughness determines how rough an object is, limiting or strengthening reflectivity.

Metallic determines how much the surface simulates a metal-like quality, appearing shinier and harder or rougher and duller.

Fesnel encompasses the idea of the angle of incidence (the angle between the line of sight of the observer and the object being observed) influencing the perceived reflectivity of a surface. A wider angle creates less reflection and a smaller angle creates greater reflection.

Tweak

Tweak

Shadow sensitivity decides the percentage of the shadow's influence. So if set to 0, the surface will not be influenced by the shadow at all. At 100% the surface would be totally black and at 50%, even if the Object's surface stands in a shadow, it will still retain 50% of its own color.

Property Names

It is possible to hover over each Attribute and access their property names to be used in code or Nodes. A complete list of these names is as follows:

• Use Alpha: use_alpha

• Alpha: alpha

• Overwrite Env.: env_overwrite

• Environment Map: environment_map

• Tint: env_tint

• Exposure: env_exposure

• Rotation: env_rotate

• Tilt: env_tilt

• Projection Height: env_projection_height

• Use Normal Map: use_normal_map

• Normal Map: normal_map

• Albedo (Base Coat): base_coat_albedo

• Specular (Base Coat): base_coat_specular

• Metallic (Base Coat): base_coat_metallic

• Roughness (Base Coat): base_coat_roughness

• Albedo (Clear Coat) clear_coat_albedo

• Specular (Clear Coat): clear_coat_specular

• Metallic (Clear Coat): clear_coat_metallic

• Roughness (Clear Coat): clear_coat_roughness

• Fesnel: clear_coat_fresnel

• Shadow Senstivity: shadow_sensitivity