Material slots

While imported models can use the materials that was included in the exported model from your 3D modelling program, there can be benefits in defining materials in the editor and assigning them to parts of your 3D model assets in the Hology editor.

• Reusability - Reuse the same 3D model but with different materials.

• Custom shaders - Create special effects or appearances with shaders you make in Hology Engine.

  • Special effects, transforms and animation - While some 3D modelling programs support creating advanced shaders, the file format used to export the models may not support all these effects. Instead, you need to create these materials in Hology Engine with custom shaders.

• Consistency - Defining your palette of materials in the editor can make it easier to ensure consistency in materials which can greatly help achieving a higher quality looking result. if you for example want to change how a certain material looks, you don't have to export all meshes with that material from your modelling program and importing them again into Hology Engine.

• Better control of the final appearence - The way a material is rendered inside your 3D modelling tools will always differ to some degree from Hology Engine based on factors like lighting and tone mapping. It can therefore be better to work on the apperences of materials directly in the Hology Engine editor so that you can ensure they look the way you want them to in-game.

Defining material slots

Material slots in Hology Engine are generated based on the materials included in the imported 3D model. A large model could be contain many objects that reuse a smaller set of materials. Slots are created based on the model's materials unique name and color. If you for example have a model with multiple pieces that should represent wood and some objects that are metal, you can name the material you assign to these objects in your 3D modelling tool with names like "wood" and "metal" which then will be visible in Hology Engine as material slots. In the Hology Engine editor, you can then assign your own custom material to all objects in the model with for example the wood material.