Setting the Materials in MOONLIGHT ATELIER 3D
by André PASCUAL
A  r  t  i  c  l  e  s 

Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Conclusion
Back to Index
Part 2

A new material

If you unmark the box "Inherit material", the "New..." and "Browse..." become available. We easily understand that "Browse..." lets you search for an existing material in the Moolight database (~/moonlight/database/materials ) and to apply it to the object named "shape-1".
You can also easily understand that "New..." lets you create a whole new material. When activating this function the following window appears :

At the beginning, the "Material" field contains this only information : "Material-1", which you should quiclky change into a more obvious name, just like "Grass" (Gazon, in french).
This material will be created by setting the various "Emittance, Diffuse, Specular..." parameters.
Even if the preview sphere gives you a good idea of the modified object look, the reality can be warped by the different lightings set in your scene. So it is best to use the "Render" button to have a better preview. Of course, the renderer should be set before anything to 200x150, for example, without antialiasing and with the "Output >Save image" option deactivated, in order to gain a few minutes and to avoid saving a result that you are not truly interested in.
If the result satisfies you, just click on the "Create" button. The dialog box disappears while the previous box, "docked" on the right part of the screen, will show "Grass" instead of "Default" in the "Material" field.
If you create or load many different materials, you can choose among them and apply them to objects by simply clicking on the small rectangular box on the right of the "Grass" or "Default" name. A scrolling menu then appears and you just have to make your choice.