Materials library

To get a detailled tutorial, please read the documentation

For every material, you can find a detailled documentation here under materials library tag.

Using a material from the library

You can find multiple materials that just works with Babylon.js in dist folder. To use then, you only need to reference the associated .js file and use the new provided material:

var simple = new BABYLON.SimpleMaterial("simple", scene);
sphere.material = simple;

Adding a new material to the library

To add a new material, you have to create your own folder in materials folder in src. Then you need to add a .ts file an two .fx files:

• The .ts is the TypeScript code of your material
• .fx files: GLSL code for vertex and fragment shaders

The best way to start a new material is to copy/past the simple material. This material provides all the features required by a Babylon.js material:

• Bones support
• Instances support
• Support for up to 4 lights
• Cache support
• Shadows support
• Fog support
• Point rendering support
• Clip plane support

But you can also start from scratch as you are not forced to support all these features.

Integrating the material in the build process

To build all materials and generate the dist folder, just run from the tools/gulp folder:

gulp materialsLibrary

To integrate your new material to the build process, you have to edit the config.json file in the tools/gulp and add an entry in the "materialsLibrary/libraries" section of the file:

  "libraries": [
    ...
      {
        "files": ["../../materialsLibrary/src/gradient/babylon.gradientMaterial.ts"],
        "shaderFiles": [
          "../../materialsLibrary/src/gradient/gradient.vertex.fx",
          "../../materialsLibrary/src/gradient/gradient.fragment.fx"
        ],
        "output": "babylon.gradientMaterial.js"
      }
      ...
  ]

Testing your material

To test your material, you can use the /materialsLibrary/index.html page. References are added automatically. You only need to update the code to create an instance of your material and reference it in the UI system:

gui.add(options, 'material', ['standard', 'simple']).onFinishChange(function () {
					switch (options.material) {
						case "simple":
							currentMaterial = simple;
							break;
						default:
							currentMaterial = std;
							break;
					}

					currentMesh.material = currentMaterial;
				});

This page allows you to test your code with animated meshes, shadows, various kinds of lights and fog. Just use the UI on the right to turn features on and off.

To serve this page, you can start from the tools/gulp folder the task:

gulp webserver