Where is materials and properties in Blender: the Material tab, the Principled BSDF and a glass material

Blender edits materials in two places that show the same data: the Material tab of the Properties editor and the Shader Editor. Menu names below are those of Blender 5.2.

Where is the Material tab in Blender?

In the default Layout workspace, the Properties editor sits in the bottom right corner, under the Outliner. Its settings are grouped into tabs, a vertical column of icons along one side of the editor.

1. Select the object in the 3D Viewport or in the Outliner.
2. In the column of tabs, click Material: the sphere icon with a checkered pattern, near the bottom, just below the Object Data tab.

The tabs follow the active object. The Material tab only appears for objects that can carry a material, such as meshes, curves, text, volumes and Grease Pencil. Select a camera, a light, an empty, an armature or a lattice and it disappears.

If the Properties editor was closed, click the Editor Type selector, the first button at the left of any header, and choose Properties. Inside it, Ctrl+F searches settings by name and switches to the tab of the first match.

How to add a material

With the object selected, open the Material tab and click New. Blender creates a material named Material whose node tree already holds a Principled BSDF connected to a Material Output node.

When the slot already holds a material, the button next to the name duplicates it instead. A number in that field is the user count: that many objects share the material, and clicking the number gives the current object its own copy. The Link selector beside it sets where the material is stored: with Data, every object that shares the mesh shares the material; with Object, they can differ.

Several materials on one object

1. In the Material tab, click + (Add Material Slot) beside the slot list, then New, or pick an existing material from the browse menu.
2. Press Tab to enter Edit Mode and 3 for Face select mode.
3. Select the faces, click the new slot in the list and press Assign.

In Edit Mode, Select and Deselect pick the faces that use the active slot. Since Blender 5.0 the Remove Material Slot button is disabled in Edit Mode, so delete slots in Object Mode. For a smooth transition between two materials, the manual recommends a Mix Shader node rather than separate faces.

The Principled BSDF: the settings that matter

The Principled BSDF, based on the OpenPBR Surface model, covers plastic, metal, glass, cloth and skin with one node. Its inputs are listed in the Surface panel of the Material tab and on the node, where Transmission, Emission and the other groups are collapsed panels you open with a click.

• Base Color: the color used for diffuse, subsurface, metal and transmission. New materials start at a light grey (0.8).
• Metallic: at 0.0, a non-metal with a specular layer on top; at 1.0, a fully specular reflection tinted with the Base Color.
• Roughness: 0.0 gives a perfectly sharp reflection, 1.0 a diffuse one, 0.5 by default. It also blurs transmission, which gives frosted glass.
• IOR: the index of refraction. Most materials fall between 1.0 (air) and 4.0 (germanium). The default, 1.5, approximates glass; the manual gives 1.33 for water.
• Alpha: 1.0 is opaque. Lower values make the surface see-through with no refraction, usually driven by the Alpha output of an Image Texture for leaves or cut-outs.
• Transmission, Weight: from opaque at 0 to fully transmissive at 1, for glass and liquids.
• Emission, Color and Strength: Strength is 0 by default, so nothing glows until you raise it. At 1.0, the surface shows exactly the Emission Color.

Tutorials made before Blender 4.0 show a Specular slider. Since 4.0, reflection follows the IOR, and IOR Level, in the Specular panel, scales it: 0.5 changes nothing, 0 removes all reflections. To drive these inputs with images, see the guide to textures in Blender, which relies on a clean UV unwrap.

The Shader Editor and the Shading workspace

The Shader Editor shows the node tree, which you need as soon as a texture or a second shader comes in. Click the Shading workspace tab at the top of the window, which pairs a Shader Editor with a 3D Viewport, or turn any area into a Shader Editor with its Editor Type selector. In its header, the Slot menu picks the material slot of the active object.

Blender 5.0 removed the Use Nodes button for materials and worlds, which now always use nodes. If an older tutorial tells you to click it, skip that step.

Seeing the material in the viewport

The shading buttons in the 3D Viewport header, or the pie menu on Z, switch between modes.

• Solid uses the Workbench engine, with simplified shading and no shader nodes: your Principled BSDF settings do not show.
• Material Preview renders with EEVEE and an HDRI environment. Enable Scene Lights and Scene World in its options to use your own lighting. It is unavailable when the render engine is Workbench.
• Rendered uses the render engine of the scene, Cycles or EEVEE, with the scene lighting.

Since Material Preview always runs on EEVEE, glass can look different there than in a Cycles render: judge it in Rendered with your final engine. To light it with your own panorama, see HDRI lighting in Blender.

How to make a glass material in Blender

1. Add a new material to the object.
2. In the Principled BSDF, open the Transmission panel and set Weight to 1.0.
3. Set Roughness to 0 for clear glass, or raise it for frosted glass.
4. Keep IOR at 1.5. Base Color tints the glass, so keep it white or pale for clear glass.
5. For a window pane modeled as a single plane, enable Thin Wall, an input added to the Principled BSDF in Blender 5.2.

A separate Glass BSDF node also exists. The manual notes that only a pure white Color makes it transparent and that it tends to produce noise from caustics.

Glass in Cycles

Cycles traces refraction physically, so the recipe works as it is. The manual notes that transmission shaders such as glass usually need the most bounces: if thick or stacked glass looks too dark, raise Transmission under Render Properties > Light Paths > Max Bounces. Caustics are a classic source of fireflies: in Light Paths > Caustics, unchecking Refractive removes refractive caustics, and Filter Glossy blurs hard-to-find highlights at some cost in accuracy.

Glass in EEVEE

In EEVEE, a transmissive material that does not use raytracing takes what it shows through from the light probes only, instead of tracing the objects behind it. For real refraction:

1. In the Render Properties, enable the Raytracing panel.
2. In the Material tab, Settings panel, keep Render Method on Dithered and enable Raytraced Transmission.
3. Set Thickness to Sphere for rounded objects or Slab for flat panes. With Thin Wall, the manual asks for a Thickness of 0 on the Material Output node and Slab mode.

EEVEE models only one refraction event correctly. A glass object that uses raytraced refraction does not show up through another one, and the Blended render method does not work with raytracing. Choosing an engine is covered in the guide on how to render in Blender.

Reusing a material

• On one object: click the sphere icon left of the material name and pick a material from the list; its search field filters by name.
• On many objects: in Object Mode, select them, select last the object with the right material, then Ctrl+L > Link Materials. Copy Material to Selected, in the down arrow menu next to the slot list, does the same.
• Fake User: a material with no users is lost once the file is saved and reopened. The shield icon next to its name keeps it.
• From another file: File > Append copies a material into your file; File > Link references it read-only and follows changes saved in the source file.
• Asset Browser: right-click the material name and choose Mark as Asset. It appears in the Current File library of the Asset Browser, and you drag it onto an object to apply it. For other projects, save the .blend file in a folder registered as an asset library in the Preferences.

Common material problems

• The object is pink or magenta. Blender cannot find an image used by the material: Cycles and the viewport both draw missing images in that color. File > External Data > Find Missing Files searches a folder for them, and Pack Resources stores the images inside the .blend file so a move no longer breaks them.
• The material does not show in Solid mode. Switch to Material Preview, or set Color in the Viewport Display panel of the Material tab: Solid mode uses it when its Color option is on Material.
• Editing one material changes other objects. They share it. Click the user count next to the name to give the current object its own copy.
• A material vanished after reopening the file. It had no users. Give the materials you keep a Fake User; File > Clean Up > Manage Unused Data lists what would be dropped.

Materials look real only under good light and with small imperfections: the guide to photorealistic rendering in Blender covers both.