In the world of 3D graphics, materials are just as important as the shapes they adorn. They dictate how light interacts with a surface, influencing its color, shininess, transparency, and overall appearance. Three.js offers a variety of material types, each designed for different visual effects and performance characteristics. Understanding these materials is key to bringing your 3D objects to life.
The most fundamental material in Three.js is MeshBasicMaterial. As its name suggests, it's a simple material that is not affected by light. This makes it ideal for solid colors, wireframes, or when you need to display objects in a way that ignores lighting calculations, perhaps for UI elements or diagnostic purposes.
const material = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial({ color: 0x00ff00 });MeshLambertMaterial is a step up from MeshBasicMaterial. It simulates a diffused, matte surface. This means it scatters light evenly in all directions, so the surface appears the same no matter the viewing angle. It's a good choice for objects that don't have a strong specular highlight, like paper or unpolished stone.
const material = new THREE.MeshLambertMaterial({ color: 0xff0000, transparent: true, opacity: 0.7 });When you want to add shininess and specular highlights to your objects, MeshPhongMaterial is the way to go. This material simulates a shiny surface, like polished metal or plastic, by calculating specular reflections. It accounts for the intensity and color of the light source, as well as a shininess property on the material itself.
const material = new THREE.MeshPhongMaterial({ color: 0x0000ff, specular: 0xffffff, shininess: 50 });For physically based rendering (PBR) and more realistic materials, MeshStandardMaterial is the modern standard. It uses a physically plausible lighting model, meaning it reacts to light in a way that closely mimics real-world materials. It offers properties like metalness and roughness to control the material's surface characteristics.
const material = new THREE.MeshStandardMaterial({ color: 0xffa500, metalness: 1.0, roughness: 0.2 });MeshPhysicalMaterial is an even more advanced PBR material that extends MeshStandardMaterial by adding features like clearCoat and sheen, allowing for even finer control over complex surface properties like car paint or fabrics.
const material = new THREE.MeshPhysicalMaterial({ color: 0xcccccc, clearcoat: 1.0, clearcoatRoughness: 0.05 });MeshNormalMaterial is a unique material that visualizes the surface normals of the geometry. Each face of the geometry will be rendered in a different color based on its orientation in 3D space. This is incredibly useful for debugging and understanding how your geometry is oriented.
const material = new THREE.MeshNormalMaterial();MeshDepthMaterial renders the scene based on depth. Objects closer to the camera are rendered in white, while objects further away are rendered in black. This is often used for depth fog effects or for debugging camera frustums.
const material = new THREE.MeshDepthMaterial();Beyond these core materials, Three.js offers specialized ones like LineBasicMaterial for drawing lines, PointsMaterial for rendering individual points, and ShaderMaterial for complete control using custom GLSL shaders. The choice of material significantly impacts both the visual outcome and the performance of your 3D scene.
graph TD;
A[Material Types] --> B(MeshBasicMaterial);
A --> C(MeshLambertMaterial);
A --> D(MeshPhongMaterial);
A --> E(MeshStandardMaterial);
A --> F(MeshPhysicalMaterial);
A --> G(MeshNormalMaterial);
A --> H(MeshDepthMaterial);
A --> I(Specialized Materials);