Some of the material properties might be easy to understand but there are many that aren’t that obvious. Even those that are obvious may have aspects that you may overlook. Understanding these properties will make all the difference between your 3D images looking ‘artificial’ or ‘wrong’ instead of ‘beautiful’ or ‘real’. It is clear that you need to do this if you need to make your 3D images to look real, to be used as the environment or a character which is part of a live sequence. It is equally important to understand this even if it is a totally fictitious, ‘artificial’ environment. The challenge here is to make this animated world feel believable. Good materials and lighting are critical to make this possible.