Looking Glass Documentation
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  • Looking Glass User Guide
  • NEW! ✨Looking Glass Go✨
  • Displays
    • 🔮Looking Glass Go
      • ⚡Get Started with Looking Glass Go
      • 📱Using the Go Mobile App
      • 🔆Liteforms™
      • 🖥️Standalone and Desktop Modes
      • 🔌Power and LED States
      • 🪄Default Playlist
      • ⏭️What's Next?
      • 👜Accessories
      • ⚙️Advanced Playlist Creation
      • ⚙️Manual Firmware Update
      • ❓Common Troubleshooting Issues
    • 🔮Looking Glass 16" Light Field Displays
      • 🪄Looking Glass 16" Light Field Display (Landscape)
      • 🪄Looking Glass 16" Light Field Display (Portrait)
      • ❓Common Troubleshooting Issues
    • 🔮Looking Glass 32" Light Field Displays
      • 🪄Looking Glass 32" Light Field Display (Landscape)
      • 🪄Looking Glass 32" Light Field Display (Portrait)
      • ❓Common Troubleshooting Issues
    • 🔮Looking Glass 65" Light Field Display
    • 🔮Looking Glass Portrait
      • ⚡Get Started with Looking Glass Portrait
      • 🎇Demo Holograms
      • ❓Common Troubleshooting Issues
  • Software Tools
    • 📚Overview
    • 🌉Looking Glass Bridge
      • ✨Using Looking Glass Bridge
      • 🪟Display Settings on Windows
      • 🍎Display Settings on macOS
      • 🐧Display Settings on Linux
      • 👷Troubleshooting
    • 📽️Looking Glass Studio
      • 📚Using Looking Glass Studio
      • RGB-D Photo / Video
      • Quilt Images / Video
      • iPhone Portrait Photos
      • Android Depth Photos
        • Samsung Portrait Mode
      • Light Field Photosets
      • Exporting Holograms
      • Troubleshooting
    • 🧊Looking Glass Blocks
      • ✨Convert any image into a hologram
      • ⬆️Uploading, editing and sharing Quilts
      • 🥽Viewing your holograms on different platforms
    • 🎬Hologram Video
    • 🔆Liteforms™
      • 🪟Get Started on Windows
      • 🍎Get Started on MacOS
      • 🧙Making Custom Liteforms
      • 🏪Configure Liteforms for Kiosk Setup
    • 👀Looking Glass Model Viewer
    • 🧪Experiments
      • 📽️Media Encoder
      • ⏩Looking Glass Media Encoder
  • Key Concepts
    • 🔑Hologram 101
      • 🎉Making great holograms
      • 🌎Holograms in the real world
      • 👾Holograms, but virtual
    • 🔍How does Looking Glass Work?
    • 📸Virtual Camera
    • 🧊3D Design Guidelines
      • Lighting
      • Post-Processing
      • Scene Composition
      • Materials & Textures
      • Performance
    • 💡Quilts
      • 🎬Quilt Video Encoding
    • 💡Light Fields
      • ⚡Linear Light Field Capture
    • 📽️Filming a Looking Glass
  • Creator Tools
    • 🎨Overview
    • 🔌Unity
      • ⚡Using Unity with Looking Glass
      • Setting up your Development Environment
      • Example Scenes
      • Prefabs
        • Hologram Camera
        • 3D Cursor
        • Dual Monitor Application
      • Script Reference
        • HologramCamera.cs
        • LKGDisplaySystem.cs
        • QuiltCapture.cs
        • Cursor3D.cs
        • OrbitControls.cs
        • BlockUploader.cs
        • MobileDMAController.cs
        • iOS Sample Scene Scripts
          • ChangeInteractionModality.cs
          • XYSlider.cs
          • XYSpotlight.cs
          • AudioRotateControl.cs
          • ModelController.cs
          • DemoIOSUIController.cs
          • PageHandler.cs
          • PageConnectHandler.cs
          • PageCalibrateHandler.cs
          • PageTestHandler.cs
          • DynamicAlcove.cs
      • Package Integrations
        • Built-in Render Pipeline Post-Processing
      • Developing for iOS
      • Depth of Field and Other Post-Processing Effects
      • Quilt Video Audio and Playback
      • Developing for Ultraleap Hand Tracking on Looking Glass
      • Looking Glass Pro (Legacy)
      • Additional Support
      • Change Log
    • 🍹Blender
    • 🔌Unreal Engine
      • 🗒️Change Log and Old Versions
      • 💽Installing the Unreal Engine plugin
      • 🎥Using the Unreal Engine Plugin
        • Using the HoloPlay Capture
        • Exporting Quilt Images and Video with Sequencer
      • Accessing HoloPlay Data with Blueprint Scripting
      • Packaging the Project
      • Unreal Engine 4 (Legacy Support)
        • Unreal Engine 4 Quick Start
          • Using the HoloPlay Capture
          • Exporting Quilt Images and Video with Sequencer
    • 🌐WebXR
      • 🔶PlayCanvas
      • 3️⃣3️⃣ Three.JS
      • ⚛️React-Three-Fiber
      • 🌈Spline
  • Tutorials
    • 📱Running Looking Glass Displays with iOS Devices
    • Ⓜ️Capturing Light Fields in Maya
    • 🧑‍🔬Using ShaderToy with Looking Glass
    • 🎨Sculpting with Adobe Medium and Looking Glass
    • 🔍Turn Videogames Holographic with Refract
    • 🖐️Building with Leap Motion
  • Developer Docs
    • ⚙️Looking Glass Bridge SDK
      • 🪛Web Application Integration
      • 🔌Integrating Native Applications
      • 📓Native Function Reference
    • 🐦Looking Glass Core Migration Guide
  • Third Party Software
    • 🗡️3D Slicer
    • 🔬VTK (Visualization Toolkit)
    • 🗺️ParaView
    • 🔩Community Made Tools & Projects
  • Legacy Software
    • 📡3D Model Importer
      • 3D Model Importer App Guide
      • 3D Model Importer App Reference
    • 🎭Diorama
      • Change Log
    • 🎞️Depth Recorder
    • 📸Lightfield Photo App
    • 🍍Looking Glass Core Overview
    • 🍽️Looking Glass Core SDK
      • C API Overview
        • HoloPlayCore.h
          • State Functions
          • General-Query-Functions
          • Device-Query-Functions
        • libHoloPlayCore.h
        • HoloPlayShaders.h
    • 🔰Looking Glass Core JS
      • API
        • HoloPlayCore.Client
        • HoloPlayCore.Message
        • HoloPlay Service Related
        • examples
  • Legacy Hardware
    • 🔻Looking Glass 8.9"
    • 🔻Looking Glass 15.6"
    • 🔻Looking Glass 8K
    • 🔻Looking Glass 16"
    • 🔻Looking Glass 32"
    • 🔻Looking Glass Pro
  • 💬Contact Us
  • 🛠️FAQ & Troubleshooting
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On this page
  • Shaders
  • Maps
  • Use a Good UV Map
  • Use a Good Normal Map
  • Other Maps
  • Avoiding Texture Compression
  • Smoothness and Metallic Values
  • Note about Lighting

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  1. Key Concepts
  2. 3D Design Guidelines

Materials & Textures

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Last updated 1 year ago

Was this helpful?

When 3D models presented in the Looking Glass have great materials on them, it almost feels like you can reach out and touch them. Of course, there can be significant time saved in art pipelines with non-photorealistic styling, like flat (or “toon”) shading, voxels, and lo-fi aesthetics in general, but to get things to feel physically present, tricks usually reserved for working towards photorealism tend to work best.

Shaders

While adding your own custom will always give you more customizability, we've found that the standard Unity shaders work quite well for Looking Glass content.

Maps

Use a Good UV Map

UVs are coordinates assigned to vertices, which tell each face using that vertex what part of your texture should be stretched across said face. If your model is completely missing UV's, it won't get any texture at all. If your model has questionable or auto-generated UV's, you might see some jagged irregularities in textures or ugly, distracting seams.

Use a Good Normal Map

Good normals will hugely improve your model’s illusion of presence in the Looking glass, and make interaction with your light sources much more interesting. Normal textures are 2D representations of vectors (XYZ encoded as RGB), which will help determine how each face receives light from the scene. There's a few tools for creating these for your models if they’re not already there:

Another way to generate a Normal map if all you have is an Albedo is with Photoshop. Convert it to grayscale, then Filter > 3D > Generate Bump Map.

If you are looking for a quick way to add texture, you can add a generic looping texture to your normals. Simply search for “tiling water normal map” on an internet image search engine, and import them onto your model’s normals.

Other Maps

UV and Normal maps help set a sense of texture, but don’t overlook other types of maps as well, including:

  • Metallic / specular for specular shininess

  • Height / bump for occlusion

  • Occlusion / obscurance for realistic crevices

Avoiding Texture Compression

By default, Unity compresses any texture over 2k. Resolution increases can be achieved through the texture import settings.

Smoothness and Metallic Values

These values, while not necessarily important in other 3D applications, may serve to enhance the appearance of depthiness of LKG content by producing subtle highlights. Experiment with these for the greatest effect in conjunction with the texture's normal map intensity value.

Note about Lighting

The final appearance of any material will depend greatly on the lights in the scene as well as the scene-wide lighting settings, which can be access through Window > Rendering > Lighting Settings

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https://www.substance3d.com/
https://xnormal.net/
http://www.handplane3d.com/