Materials

Roblox's materials are unlike materials on other platforms. Their visual and physical properties reflect those of materials in the real world. For example, concrete is heavier than plastic and sinks faster in water. Set the material of a part or terrain, and Roblox simulates the physical material properties to make this behavior just work.

Roblox Engine offers a wide range of built-in materials suitable to build many experiences, including various categories of metal, rock, and organic materials. Material Manager in Studio helps you visualize materials and apply them to parts and terrain.

You can create your own custom materials or load custom materials that other users created, via a system called MaterialService. Custom materials have an additional behavior called Adaptive Materials that makes it easy for you to adapt any model to use your art style and custom materials, even if someone else created the model.

Material Manager

The easiest way to interact with materials is through Material Manager. It's a convenient, streamlined tool for working with materials. You can also interact with materials via Properties, but Material Manager is easier.

Exploring Material Manager

To open Material Manager, click the Home tab, then click Material Manager. You can also open it from the Parts section of the Model tab.

Material Manager opens as a large window.

Material Manager has four areas:

A. The Toolbar displays key commands and a material search field.
B. The Browser displays available materials, either all at once or by category.
C. The Palette displays the materials in the currently selected category.
D. The Inspector displays information about the selected material.

You can resize it and dock it like other windows in Studio. To adjust the size of each grid and toggle between list or grid view, use the view options on the top-right corner.

Applying Materials to Parts using Apply to Selected

The Material property for new Part instances is Plastic. To apply a material to a part:

1. In the viewport or Explorer, click the part.

2. In the palette, hover your mouse over the material you want to apply. You don't need to click it. The Apply to Selected button appears.

   

3. Click Apply to Selected.

Applying Materials to Parts using Paint

You can use a material as a tool that applies to parts. To use a material as a tool:

1. In Material Manager, click the material you want to apply.

2. In the top-left corner of Material Manager, click Paint parts with selected material to enable the material as a painting tool.

   

3. In the viewport, click the parts that you want to apply the material to.

4. When you're done using the material as a painting tool, click Paint parts with selected material again to disable the tool.

Materials for Terrain

A subset of the materials available for parts is available for terrain. In addition to the visual and physical properties materials provide for parts, terrain materials determine features such as the terrain's shape and its decorator display. For example, brick terrain has a boxy shape and the grass decorator renders on grass terrain but not on ice terrain. For information on which materials are available for terrain and how to apply them, see Terrain.

Colors for Parts and Terrain

Parts and terrain inherit their look from its material, but you can apply colors to further adjust their look. Parts are colored per-part, but Terrain is colored per-place. For example, you can have three different parts made of grass that are tinted red, blue, and green, but all Terrain grass in a Place has the same tint. For information on how to color parts and terrain, see Parts and Terrain, respectively.

Custom Materials

Roblox provides APIs and tools to make it easy to create your own custom materials and use them in a variety of ways. MaterialService is the system that enables you to generate custom materials. MaterialVariant instances represent custom materials as variations of built-in materials. You can apply custom materials per-part or globally to both parts and terrain, and you can fine-tune how custom materials apply to faces of terrain with TerrainDetail instances.

The appearance of custom materials is based on Physically Based Rendering (PBR) textures that you make with other tools, such as Adobe Substance 3D Designer and Substance 3D Painter. For more information on using Adobe Substance 3D Designer to create textures for custom materials, see the Adobe documentation.

MaterialService

Material Manager provides a user interface to interact with various aspects of MaterialService, including creating new custom materials and applying them to parts and terrain.

You can also interact with MaterialService from Explorer or in server-side scripts. Each MaterialVariant instance must be in MaterialService for it to work.

Upgrading Built-In Materials

The built-in materials upgraded in 2022 to support Custom Materials. This upgrade is on by default for new places, but it's optional. To upgrade built-in materials from the Pre-2022 versions to the 2022 versions:

1. In Explorer, click MaterialService.

   

2. In Properties, scroll down to Material Pack. Enable Use2022Materials.

   

After upgrading, you might need to adjust colors for terrain because terrain made with 2022 materials use tint instead of hue shift.

Creating a Custom Material

Material Manager provides a graphical user interface for you to insert and edit MaterialVariant instances in MaterialService.

You can edit all properties of a custom material in Material Manager or Properties. However, if you rename the custom material after applying it to parts, then the parts don't automatically use the custom material with the new name. This behavior allows for Adaptive Materials. If you want parts to continue using a custom material after you rename it, you need to re-apply the custom material.

In Material Manager

To create a custom material in Material Manager:

1. If Material Manager isn't open, then click Material Manager in the Home tab.

   

2. In Material Manager, click the built-in material that you want to set as the base material for your custom material to inherit non-customizable properties from. If you skip this step, the base material is Plastic, but you can change it later.

3. In the top-left corner of Material Manager, click Create Material Variant. The inspector opens for you to edit a new MaterialVariant instance.

   

4. In the inspector, rename your custom material to describe its purpose. You can change the name later, but if you change the name after applying it to parts, then you need to reapply it.

5. For each texture map, paste the asset ID or import a new texture from your computer. Square textures work best. If you don't specify an asset ID for a texture map, then the texture is blank.

6. If you want, set values for Studs Per Tile and Pattern to adjust how the material looks.

7. In the palette, the icon in the bottom-right corner of your custom material indicates that it's a custom material.

   

In Explorer

To create a custom material in Explorer:

1. Hover over MaterialService.

2. Click the ⊕ button that appears to the right of MaterialService to open the Insert Object menu.

3. Select MaterialVariant.

   

4. Rename the custom material to describe its purpose.

5. Update the properties of the custom material to fit your needs.

Applying Custom Materials to Parts

You can apply custom materials to a Part by setting the Part.Material to MaterialVariant.BaseMaterial and Part.MaterialVariant to MaterialVariant.Name. If you use Material Manager, it sets both for you. If you use Properties, then setting the MaterialVariant property automatically sets the Material as the base material. If you use a server-side script, remember to set both properties.

You can apply custom materials to parts from Material Manager by using the Apply to Selected or the Applying Materials to Parts using Paint. To use Apply to Selected:

1. In the viewport or Explorer, click the parts that you want to apply the custom materials to.

2. In Material Manager, find your custom material and hover over it.

3. Click Apply to Selected Parts.

   

For information on the Paint parts with selected material tool, see Applying Materials to Parts using Paint.

Material Overrides

You can set a custom material as a Material Override to make its built-in base material be a reference to the custom material. As a result, when you set the material of a part or terrain to be the built-in material, the Engine uses the custom material for textures and physical properties.

Material Overrides apply to both parts and terrain, and they are the only way to apply custom materials to terrain. The materials for terrain are global per place, so you can't apply multiple variants of the same base material to terrain in a single place.

The default Material Override for each built-in material is its name. For example, the default Material Override for Brick is "Brick". As a result, a convenient way to set a custom material as a Material Override for its base material is to rename it to the name of its base material. If you don't want the built-in material to use a custom material as the Material Override even if a custom material with its name exists, then set the Material Override to "None".

Setting Material Overrides

To set a custom material as a material override in Material Manager:

1. If Material Manager isn't open, then click Material Manager in the Home tab.

2. Click the custom material that you want to set as an override.

3. In the inspector, scroll down to Material Overrides. Enable Set Override.

   

Disabling Material Overrides

To disable the Material Override for a base material:

1. If Material Manager isn't open, then click Material Manager in the Home tab.

2. Click the custom material that you want to set as an override.

3. In the inspector, scroll down to Material Overrides. In the dropdown menu for Material Override, select None.

   

Viewing Material Overrides

To view Material Overrides in your place:

1. In Explorer, click MaterialService.

   

2. In Properties, scroll to Material Overrides.

   

Terrain Details

When you apply a material to parts or terrain, the material applies as tiles across each face. You can use a TerrainDetail instance to customize the Side, Bottom, and Top faces of terrain. Each TerrainDetail instance overrides the properties of a custom material for one face on the terrain. Use one instance for each face of each custom material.

TerrainDetail instances don't apply to parts. To detail faces of parts, create a mesh with a SurfaceAppearance instance. For more information, see Meshes in Studio.

Creating Terrain Details

To detail the face of a terrain with a custom material:

1. If Material Manager isn't open, then click Material Manager in the Home tab.

2. In the palette, click the custom material.

3. Set the custom material as a Material Override for its built-in base material.

4. In the inspector, click Create for the face you want to detail.

   

5. Rename the terrain detail to describe its purpose. Set the texture maps, Studs Per Tile, and Pattern. These properties are the same as for MaterialVariant instances.

Deleting Terrain Details

To delete a TerrainDetail, click the delete button.

Deleting a Custom Material

You can delete a custom material using Material Manager or Explorer. To delete a custom material in Material Manager:

1. If Material Manager isn't open, then click Material Manager in the Home tab.

2. In the palette, click the custom material.

3. In the inspector, click the delete icon.

   

Physical Properties

Materials have physical properties: density, elasticity, elasticity weight, friction, and friction weight. Each built-in material has default values for each physical property. For a list of the default values, see Default Physical Properties.

You can set custom values for the physical properties per part, custom material, and material override. The Engine prioritizes more granular definitions when determining the effective physical properties of a part. The values in the following list are in order from highest to lowest priority:

• Custom physical properties of the part
• Custom physical properties of the part's custom material
• Custom physical properties of the material override of the part's material
• Default physical properties of the part's material

Setting Custom Physical Properties for a Part

Setting custom physical properties of a part overrides the physical properties of its material. You can set the custom physical properties from Properties.

To set the custom physical properties to a part:

1. In the viewport or Explorer, click the part.

2. In Properties, scroll down to the Part section. Enable CustomPhysicalProperties.

3. Set the physical properties as you like.

   

Setting Custom Physical Properties for a Custom Material

You can set values for the physical properties of a custom material from Material Manager.

To set custom physical properties to a custom material:

1. If Material Manager isn't open, then click Material Manager in the Home tab.

2. Click the custom material you want to edit.

3. In the inspector, scroll down to the Physics section.

4. Set the physical properties as you like.

   

To reset the physical properties to the default values for the base material, click Reset.

Viewing Current Physical Properties

To view the current physical properties for a part:

1. In the viewport or Explorer, click the part.

2. In Properties, scroll down to the Part section. If CustomPhysicalProperties is disabled, then CurrentPhysicalProperties appears.

   

3. If CurrentPhysicalProperties is overridden by a MaterialVariant, then a warning shows. To jump to that MaterialVariant, double-click Overridden by or its name.

   

Adaptive Materials

When you apply a custom material to a part, the part's Part.MaterialVariant property becomes the name of its MaterialVariant rather than its specific instance. This means that when you reuse the part in the same or a different place, as in a model or package, it's easier for you to adapt different custom materials to adjust the part's look. The adaptive behavior of custom materials has the following effects:

• If you create collections of custom materials with the same name but different textures, then you can quickly change the style of a place by changing which collection is a child of MaterialService.
• If you insert a model with parts that use a custom material, then you can modify its look by creating an instance of MaterialVariant in MaterialService and renaming it to the same name as the previous custom material, rather than applying the new material to the parts in the model.

When you reuse custom materials in models and packages, each MaterialVariant instance must be in MaterialService for it to work.

• If you publish a model in the Creator Marketplace with a custom material, include the MaterialVariant instance in the model. For more information about publishing models to the Creator Marketplace, see Publishing Assets.
• If you insert a model from the Creator Marketplace, look for any MaterialVariant instances and copy them to MaterialService. For more information about importing models from the Creator Marketplace, see Creator Marketplace.
• If you want to use custom materials with packages, put the package in MaterialService. For more information on packages, see Packages.

The Creator Marketplace has a category called Materials for "material packs", models that contain only MaterialVariant, TerrainDetail, Folder, and Model instances. The Materials category is a way to promote and discover custom materials by other creators.

Asset IDs for Built-In Materials

Shaders generate the look and feel of materials. The built-in Materials shaders work differently than the shader MaterialVariant instances use, so you can't create a custom material that looks exactly like a built-in Material. However, you can still create custom materials that use the textures of built-in materials. The following tables list the asset IDs for built-in materials.

2022 Materials

Pre-2022 Materials

2022 Terrain Materials

Pre-2022 Terrain Materials

Default Colors

The following table lists the default RGB values for each 2022 material. For steps on how to upgrade Pre-2022 materials to 2022 materials, see Upgrading Built-In Materials. For information on how to color parts and terrain, see Parts and Terrain, respectively.

Default Physical Properties

The following table lists the default physical properties for each material. The 2022 materials and Pre-2022 materials have the same values. For descriptions of each property see the PhysicalProperties data type in the Engine API reference. For information on setting custom physical properties, see Physical Properties.