Materials describe how polygons reflect light or appear to emit light in a 3-D scene. Essentially, a material is a set of properties that tell Microsoft® Direct3D® Mobile the following things about the polygons it is rendering:

• How they reflect ambient and diffuse light
  
  
• What their specular highlights look like
  
  
• Whether the polygons appear to emit light
  
  

Direct3D Mobile applications written in C++ use the D3DMMATERIALstructure to describe material properties. For more information, see Material Properties.

Note:
If your application does not specify material properties for rendering, the system uses a default material. The default material reflects all diffuse light — white, for example — with no ambient or specular reflection.

The following topics provide additional information on materials.

• Material Properties
  
  
• Setting Material Properties
  
  
• Retrieving Material Properties
  
  

See Also