Materials

MATERIALS

Once your basic model has been created, you can start applying some colour and surface properties (shinyness, transparency) to it.

1. Open Materials Panel

Click the MATERIALS button at the top viewbar

2. Create a New Material

DOUBLE CLICK the "NEW" Material.

NAME your material "Dome Black" and adjust the HUE and BRIGHTNESS.
1. HUE is chosen with the "Colour Cube" in the bottom left corner. Hue represents the part of the rainbow you're using, as well as how intense or "Saturated" that colour will be. HINT - Don't use extreme "saturated" colours too much - they'll make your saucer look like a toy rather than a lethal death machine.
2. BRIGHTNESS is chosen by the slider in the bottom middle.
ALWAYS NAME YOUR MATERIALS
Try adjust Specular to .1 to make it less shiny

3. Apply the Material

Start in OBJECT MODE (we'll paint an entire object)
Select the dome, and APPLY the material

4. Create a Transparent Material

Double click the NEW button

Name the new material "Blue Glass"
Choose a light blue colour
Adjust the TRANS to 0.3 to make it 30% opaque

5. Select individual FACES to apply materials to

Start in POINT EDIT MODE (to modify PARTS of an object)

Choose to edit FACES (this is important!)
Use the selection tool and RIGHT mouse button to select multiple faces; You can also use the WHEELMOUSE button to DE-Select faces
Apply the GLASS material.
Left click elsewhere to deselect the faces.

NOTE - You can only select individual faces on MESH objects - PRIMITIVE objects can only be coloured as a whole

6. View the results

Return to OBJECT edit mode

Choose SMOOTH SHADED view to see the results.
ARC-ROTATE to check out the angles.

7. Customize your Saucer

Create a shiny "Silver" (Specular:0.8) material for the Dish.

Try adding some detail to the dish object;
Get used to the selection of individual faces!

Next up, make ROCKETS with the LATHE tool

Why do you need to NAME your Materials?

You will eventually want to store different 3D models in different files, and on different OBJECT page in the same file. IF you mix them together, your colour schemes WILL get messed up IF two different materials share the same NAME. The trick is to give each material it's own unique name.

TRY THIS:

Create a simple SPHERE in the bottom left corner of your screen, and use your materials to colour it RED (without changing the material name)
Use OBJECT - NEW to open a NEW object page - the red sphere will disappear - no problem - just go to the OBJECT menu and select Object01 and you'll see it again.
Use the OBJECT menu and return to Object02 page, and create a new CUBE in the top right corner. Use materials to colour it ORANGE (without changing the material name)
Select the CUBE and use CONTROL-C to copy it
Go to OBJECT01 and use CONTROL-V to paste the cube on the sphere's page. The cube SHOULD turn RED. The problem is that both colours tried to use the default name "MATERIAL01" - the pasted object will always mutate to the "host" object's colour scheme if there is a conflict

Now try copying and pasting the SPHERE into the OBJECT02 page - it should turn red

SOLUTION: Double click and RENAME the material (MATERIAL01) to the word "Orange" (or "red" as need be) - NOW try copying and pasting one object to the other's page.

RULE: ALWAYS name your MATERIALS appropriately as you invent them - it's way less work than trying to repair things later.