Emission alone makes a light-emitting material, and Transmission alone creates a translucent material like glass/water/wax/jade/etc. Metallic alone makes a metallic material. Albedo + Specular makes a glossy opaque material like plastic. Most of these channels should be an either/or situation, where the other channels in this section are turned off (have no contribution), so the material doesn't get muddy or difficult to work with.Īlbedo alone without any other contribution makes a perfectly matte material. The Albedo, Specular, Metallic, Emission, and Transmission channels control the material’s basic properties. If this is overwhelming, skip ahead, learn about all the channels, and then when you come back and reference this, it should make more sense. Below is a diagram that shows how the channels relate to one another. All Octane materials are broken down into channels, and the Universal Material has quite a few of them. The Universal Material was introduced in 2018, and remains the most versatile way to make nearly any type of material you can think of. A full writeup and images of all the materials can be found here. DownloadsĪ c4d file containing a shaderball and various materials created using the universal material can be 📥 downloaded here.

This guide is also available in 📥 PDF format here. If you need a primer on what the Universal Material is and how to think through building a material using it, check out this guide PDF This guide is a deep dive into the channels found in the Universal Material.

Octane render 4