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Frequently asked questions

Usage & Sharing

  • How do I upload my 3D models?
  • What are the recommended settings for my .obj file?
  • Can I edit my existing models?
  • What do all those material options mean?
  • How can I share a model or folder with p3d.in users?
  • How can I embed my model in a website?
  • How can I add support to my forum or site?
  • Can I use p3d.in embeds commercially?
  • How can we collaborate?

Account & Privacy

  • What type of account can I get on the site?
  • Do I need a subscription to get Plus or Premium?
  • How can I protect my content?
  • Do I still own my models after I upload them to p3d.in?

Advanced Features

  • What are hotspots (annotations), and how can I use them?
  • How can I use animations in p3d.in?
  • What are variants and how do I use them?
  • How can I view my models in Augmented Reality?

Embed API

  • What is p3d.in Embed API and how can I use it?
  • Additional Embed API examples

For PBR Materials

Base Color is the main color of the material. This can be modulated with a colored texture.

Transparency can be set by using transparency slider in the base color picker. Textured transparency is also supported by using a transparent PNG image (RGBA) in the base color material channel.

To improve the rendering of transparent or semi-transparent surfaces you can do a few things:

  • Separate the transparent surfaces from the solid surfaces in different materials.
  • Only use transparent PNG images (RGBA) for transparent materials. Some applications default to saving RGBA PNG images regardless of the alpha channel being used or not. It's better if you save the images as RGB PNG or JPG so p3d.in understands this material is solid.
  • Double sided transparent surfaces can be problematic. If possible disable this setting from the material properties.

Metalness allows you to control how metallic the material is. This can be modulated with a colored texture.

Roughness allows you to control the material's roughness. This can be modulated with a grayscale texture.

Sheen allows you to control the material's sheen. This can be modulated with a grayscale texture.

Clearcoat allows you to adjust a clear coat clearcoat paint effect.

Clearcoat roughness allows you to adjust the roughness of the clearcoat paint effect.

Emissive maps are used to define parts of a model that are emissive and are not affected by regular lighting. This texture can be grayscale or colored and can be influenced by the base color.

Ambient occlusion maps are a trick to recreate the shadowing effect around creases and edges in real lighting conditions. This texture can be colored and is multiplied by the diffuse color.

Normal maps are a way to represent surface detail without the need to increase density in geometry. This textures are generated by specialized 3D software. p3d.in uses the somewhat standard tangent space normal map format.

Bump maps are another way to represent surface detail but this time using simple grayscale images where blacks produce dents and whites produce bumps or vice versa. Bump maps are quite fast to render and reusing the same diffuse or specular texture as a bump will work just fine without adding any extra download time.

Diffuse Detail maps are a trick to enhance the details of the main texture. This texture can be colored and is multiplied by the diffuse color.

Normal Detail maps are a trick to enhance the details of the normal texture. This texture can be colored and is multiplied by the normal map texture.

Bump Detail maps are a trick to enhance the details of the bump texture. This texture can be colored and is multiplied by the bump texture.

Detail maps are special tileable textures used to give the material a second layer of small scale detail. The diffuse, normal and bump channels can benefit from detail maps.

ShadeSpheres are one of those very simple techniques that can produce great visual results. You basically take a small image of a sphere representing the shading of a material. When applied to your model it produces a beautiful and fast representation of almost any material you can imagine.

What if my model has multiple materials and textures?

As soon as your model is displayed in the viewer you will be able to assign different materials and textures to each poly group right in the Mesh and Materials sidebar ( ).

Here's a complete demo on how to set up your model, textures and materials:

For Classic Materials

Diffuse is the main color of the material. This can be modulated with a colored texture.

Transparency can be set by using transparency slider in the diffuse color picker. Textured transparency is also supported by using a transparent PNG image (RGBA) in the diffuse material channel.

To improve the rendering of transparent or semi-transparent surfaces you can do a few things:

  • Separate the transparent surfaces from the solid surfaces in different materials.
  • Only use transparent PNG images (RGBA) for transparent materials. Some applications default to saving RGBA PNG images regardless of the alpha channel being used or not. It's better if you save the images as RGB PNG or JPG so p3d.in understands this material is solid.
  • Double sided transparent surfaces can be problematic. If possible disable this setting from the material properties.

Specularity allows you to control the material's highlight color and intensity. This can be modulated with a colored texture.

Glossiness allows you to control the material shininess. This can be modulated with a grayscale texture.

Normal maps are a way to represent surface detail without the need to increase density in geometry. This textures are generated by specialized 3D software. p3d.in uses the somewhat standard tangent space normal map format.

Bump maps are another way to represent surface detail but this time using simple grayscale images where blacks produce dents and whites produce bumps or vice versa. Bump maps are quite fast to render and reusing the same diffuse or specular texture as a bump will work just fine without adding any extra download time.

Ambient occlusion maps are a trick to recreate the shadowing effect around creases and edges in real lighting conditions. This texture can be colored and is multiplied by the diffuse color.

Glow maps are used to define parts of a model that are emissive and are not affected by regular lighting. This texture can be grayscale or colored and can be influenced by the diffuse color.

Spherical Reflection maps are a trick to simulate reflections from the environment over the model by using a simple "mirror ball" texture. Our reflection maps can be further controlled by Fresnel and separate strenght maps.

Detail maps are special tileable textures used to give the material a second layer of small scale detail. The diffuse, normal and bump channels can benefit from detail maps.

ShadeSpheres are one of those very simple techniques that can produce great visual results. You basically take a small image of a sphere representing the shading of a material. When applied to your model it produces a beautiful and fast representation of almost any material you can imagine.

What if my model has multiple materials and textures?

As soon as your model is displayed in the viewer you will be able to assign different materials and textures to each poly group right in the Mesh and Materials sidebar ( ).

Here's a complete demo on how to set up your model, textures and materials:

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