Materials and style

Every model has a material palette — a small set of named slots (main, hardware, counter, paint, etc.) that primitives reference. The agent fills those slots from a curated library of PBR (physically-based rendering) materials with real wood grain, brass anisotropy, marble veining, etc.

You will rarely need to think about materials directly — describing a style is enough. But it helps to know what the agent has access to.

The library

The material library covers the most common furniture finishes:

• Woods: oak (light, natural, fumed, white-stained), walnut (oiled, dark, fumed), pine, beech, ash, mahogany, teak, ebony.
• Painted finishes: matte white, eggshell white, satin black, charcoal, sage, cream, RAL-style off-the-shelf colors.
• Stone: Carrara marble, Calacatta marble, black granite, basalt, travertine, slate.
• Metals: brass (brushed, polished, aged), steel (brushed, matte black, powder-coated), chrome, copper, bronze.
• Glass: clear, smoked, frosted, fluted.
• Fabrics: linen, wool, velvet, leather (smooth, distressed).
• Hardware-specific: brushed-nickel knobs, polished-brass pulls, matte-black hinges.

Each entry is a full PBR description — color, roughness, metalness, plus optional high-resolution textures (color, normal, roughness, ambient occlusion). The agent picks the right entry based on what you describe; you do not need to know the exact catalog.

How the agent picks

When you write "oak bookshelf with brass hardware," the agent browses the library, picks the closest matches (probably an oak-natural and a brushed-brass entry), and assigns them to two named slots in the model's palette — usually main for the wood and hardware for the metal.

From then on, anything in the model tagged main renders as oak; anything tagged hardware renders as brass. Changing the palette is a single small edit — the parts themselves don't move.

Asking for a different material

If you want a different finish, name it:

Change the wood from oak to walnut. Make the hardware satin black instead of brass. Use Carrara marble for the countertop.

The agent swaps the palette in one iteration (15 credits) and the viewport re-renders.

You can also be more specific:

Use a fumed-oak finish with a matte sheen, not the glossy one.

The agent will pick the closest library entry that matches.

When the library does not have what you want

If you ask for something the library does not cover — "a custom mint-green chalk paint", "a turquoise epoxy" — the agent improvises with a hand-tuned color, roughness, and reflectivity. This works for flat finishes, but it will not have texture (no wood grain, no marble veining, no brushed-metal anisotropy). For anything where texture matters, picking a close library match usually looks better than chasing an exact custom color.

Material slots

The named slots vary by piece type, but the agent uses consistent conventions:

Slot name	Typical use
main	The dominant material — the wood on a cabinet, the marble on a counter.
hardware	Handles, knobs, hinges, drawer slides.
accent	Decorative trim, a contrasting band, an inlay.
counter	The top surface of a worktop or vanity.
paint	A painted secondary surface — toe-kick, back panel.
glass	Door panes, shelves on display cabinets.
fabric	Upholstery on soft furniture.
shadow	A baked-in subtle dark slot for shadow-gap rendering.

You can ask about any specific slot:

What material is the "accent" slot using right now?

The agent will tell you and offer alternatives.

Style as a parameter

Some models declare style or finish as an enum parameter so you can swap palettes without a chat turn:

• A modular wardrobe might have finish: matte-white | black-brown | white-oak | grey-wood.
• A vanity might have wood: oak | walnut | fumed-oak.

Switch the enum button group in the parameters panel, and the whole piece re-textures. Free, instant. If your model does not have such an enum, you can ask for one.

What materials travel with which export

Not every CAD/3D format carries materials the same way:

Format	Carries colors	Carries textures	Notes
PNG	✓ (rendered pixels)	✓ (rendered pixels)	What you see is what you get.
GLB	✓	✓	The best for visualisation — wood grain, marble veining, anisotropy.
OBJ + MTL (zipped)	✓	✓	The classic interchange for Blender / Modo / Maya.
DAE (Collada)	✓ (diffuse only)	✗	SketchUp Free imports colors but not textures.
STEP	✓ (color per surface)	✗	FreeCAD / Fusion / SolidWorks read the color via the AP214 presentation chain.
DXF	✓ (color per layer)	✗	True 24-bit RGB via group code 420.
STL	✗	✗	Geometry only. STL has no concept of materials.

If you need full textures on the export, use GLB or OBJ. If you just need colors, anything except STL will carry them.

Next: Views and screenshots — capturing the model from any angle.