Although it is not currently common in CAD or BIM software, most DCC applications not only support colors and textures, but also procedural materials using some kind of shading language. Shading languages can be very extensive and support many other instructions. Current GPUs calculate advanced shaders in real time. The glass shader above is a basic example of a procedural shader.
As we don't expect our readers to simply start writing such shaders, and this book has no room to discuss them either, we suggest an alternative route and use a procedural shading system that is more directly accessible for end users.
Allegorithmic is a company that develops a procedural material system called "Substances". They have an authoring environment where you can create new materials and they even sell individual materials. Many 3D systems, including Unity, support substance shaders. In the Asset Store, check the 8 FREE Substances for Mobile package (https...
