What Are Materials?

Platform SDK: DirectX

What Are Materials?

Materials describe how polygons reflect light or appear to emit light in a 3-D scene. Essentially, a material is a set of properties that tell Direct3D the following things about the polygons it is rendering.

How they reflect ambient and diffuse light
What their specular highlights look like
Whether the polygons appear to emit light

[C++]

Direct3D Immediate Mode applications written in C++ use the D3DMATERIAL7 structure to describe material properties. For more information, see Material Properties.

[Visual Basic]

Direct3D Immediate Mode applications written in Visual Basic use the D3DMATERIAL7 type to describe material properties. For more information, see Material Properties.