---
title: Materials
order: 6
---

Chisel objects use Blender's standard material slot for per-object color and shading. The "Chisel Material" properties panel adds a small color picker for quick tweaks, with an optional node graph for richer setups — color blending across booleans, masks driven by other objects, mixing two shaders by a soft seam.

![Default matcap shading — no per-object colors set](../assets/matcap-preview.webp)

The default look: every object renders with the scene matcap, no per-object color applied. Below is the same scene with materials assigned — Chisel multiplies each object's *Color* into the matcap so shapes carry their own tint without changing the underlying shading.

![Same scene with per-object colors applied](../assets/material-render.webp)

## Topics

- **[Material Panel](panel.md)** — the simple color workflow in *Material Properties*
- **[Node Editor](node-editor.md)** — Chisel's mini node graph (Matcap Shader, Mix Shader, Color, Field, Material Output)

## Where to find it

With a Chisel object selected and the Chisel render engine active, open *Material Properties* (red sphere icon on the right). Chisel adds its **Chisel Material** section there.

If the object has no material yet, click the *New* button next to the material slot — Chisel creates one with a default Matcap Shader → Material Output node tree.

## Quick path: just set a color

For most objects you only need one thing: a color.

1. Select the object.
2. Open *Material Properties → Chisel Material*.
3. Drag the **Color** slider.

That's it. The matcap stays the same scene-wide; the *Color* multiplies into it per object so each shape can carry its own tint without changing your viewport shading. See [Material Panel](panel.md) for the panel breakdown.

## When to drop into the node graph

Reach for the [node editor](node-editor.md) when:

- You want a color seam to blend wider or sharper than the geometry seam.
- You want one part of an object shaded one way and another part shaded differently, blended by an SDF mask.
- You want to mix two matcaps using a soft falloff.

For everything else, the panel's *Color* picker is enough.

## See also

- [Render Engine: Matcap](../render-engine/matcap.md) — scene-wide matcap and tint
- [Modifiers: Boolean](../modifiers/boolean.md) — *Material Blend* width control across boolean seams
- [Render Engine: Baking](../render-engine/baking.md) — bake the shaded result to a diffuse map