Materials and Shading Pipeline

Purpose

Define material libraries, PBR texture conventions, and shader budgets so surfacing stays consistent, batchable, and within performance budgets.

Use When

• 3D assets need surfacing and no material convention exists
• material or shader counts grow per asset instead of per library
• visual inconsistency or draw-call costs trace back to ad hoc materials

Inputs

• art direction (stylized vs realistic, palette, roughness language)
• target runtime's material/shader model and instancing support
• texture budgets per platform (resolution, compression, memory)
• asset categories and their reuse expectations

Process

1. build a material library: a small set of master materials/shaders with instances (or parameter variants) per use, instead of unique materials per asset
2. define the PBR texture set and channel packing convention (e.g. base color, normal, and a packed ORM map), naming, and resolution tiers per asset category
3. set texture authoring rules: texel density targets, atlas/trim-sheet usage for modular kits and props, and palette/gradient atlases where the style allows
4. budget shader complexity and material count per scene; treat every new master shader as a reviewed decision, not a per-asset convenience
5. define color-space rules (sRGB for color maps, linear for data maps) and compression settings per map type and platform
6. validate batching in the runtime: shared materials must actually batch/instance, and material count per scene stays within budget

Outputs

• master material/shader catalog with instancing rules
• texture set, channel packing, naming, and resolution-tier conventions
• texel density and atlas/trim-sheet guidance
• per-scene material/shader budgets and validation checklist

Quality Bar

• assets are surfaced from the library — new master materials are rare, reviewed events
• texture sets follow the packing/naming convention and import with correct color spaces
• repeated assets share materials and demonstrably batch or instance in the runtime
• texture memory and material counts stay within scene budgets on the weakest target

Common Failure Modes

• one unique material per asset, so draw calls scale with asset count and nothing batches
• normal maps imported as sRGB or data maps compressed as color, silently breaking shading
• texel density chosen per asset, making surfaces look mixed-resolution side by side
• shader variants exploding because every feature toggle was added to one master shader

Related Agents

• technical-artist
• performance-reviewer

Related Commands

• art-3d-pass
• perf-budget
• memory-budget

Related Skills

• 3d-asset-pipeline
• lighting-lod-pipeline
• technical-art-pipeline

Notes

• Keep this skill aligned with the relevant rules layer and current project documentation.
• If engine-specific constraints materially change the workflow, hand off to the matching engine skill or engine-specific reviewer.
• Boundary: this skill owns surfacing conventions; technical-art-pipeline owns the broader tech-art tooling; lighting-lod-pipeline owns how surfaces are lit.