Page 2: Exercise 1: Material Property Maps

Up until now, we’ve only been using texture to change colors. However, we can use a texture to control just about any property of a material. If you look at the documentation for MeshStandardMaterial, you can see a lot of the things we control about materials (like roughness, emission, and metalness) can be controlled with a map as well instead of giving a single value for the entire object.

For this exercise, pick one (or more) of those properties, and make a map that controls the property over the object. You need to make something where it is obvious what is going on. This means creating a texture with variation, having an appropriate object to show (a primitive like a sphere is often good enough), and maybe some adjustments to the lighting. Try using the property realistically, for example making the metal parts of an object more “metal” than the rest.

Note: to show that you haven’t just changed the colors, you probably want to make either the light or the object move (with animation). But you should know how to do that from previous workbooks.

To show that you really understand the lighting effects and how they are influenced by the material properties (which are, in turn, specified by the map), in the text box explain what material property you are altering, and how this varying property can be seen in the resulting pictures. Be specific (tell us what to look for, and why it is there).

You will probably want to create your own texture map. Make sure you include it in the repository.

You can find the starter code in 09-02-01.js ( 09-02-01.html)

Summary: Material Property Maps

Material property maps are a simple kind of map. We’ll talk about variants of normal maps on Next: Exercise 2: Bump and Normal Maps .