Material

A Material describes how the surface of a mesh looks when it is drawn: its color, how rough or metallic it is, which textures cover it and whether light affects it at all. A material does nothing on its own. It is attached to a mesh with Set Material, and the mesh carries it to the renderer.

There are two kinds. A PBR material reacts to light the way real surfaces do, with a base color, metallic and roughness values, a normal map, occlusion and an emissive color, each of which can come from a texture. An unlit material shows its color or texture as it is, without any lighting, which suits overlays and flat graphics.

A material input with nothing connected holds no material. Set Material then leaves the mesh as it is, with whatever material it already had.

Material ports are green. A material output connects only to a material input. The data viewer shows a material on a sphere.