---
title: Material Panel
order: 1
---

The Chisel Material panel lives in *Material Properties* (red sphere icon) when the active object is a Chisel SDF and the render engine is set to Chisel.

![the Chisel material panel](../assets/material-panel.webp)

With no per-object color set, everything shades with the scene matcap:

![Default matcap mode, no per-object color](../assets/matcap-preview.webp)

## Material

The picker at the top is the object's **Chisel material**. Click **New Chisel Material** to create one with a default node tree (a Matcap Shader feeding the Material Output), or pick an existing material from the list.

The material is owned by the object rather than by its mesh data, which Chisel swaps behind the scenes for proxy geometry, so proxy re-bakes, undo and redo all keep it. Files from earlier versions adopt their old slot material automatically on load.

### When the slot disagrees

If you assign a different material in Blender's own material slot (from the *Material* tab's slot list, a script, or a linked asset) the panel points out the divergence:

> Object slot holds: Brass
> Chisel renders the material above, not this.

Click **Use "Brass" Instead** to make the slot material the Chisel material. Adoption is never automatic.

## Color *(no node tree)*

When the material has **no node tree** yet (a fresh slot, or an imported non-Chisel material that you've just promoted), the panel shows a single control:

- **Color**: RGB value (default `0.8, 0.8, 0.8`). Multiplied into the matcap so each object can carry its own tint without disturbing scene-wide shading.

For most modeling work this is all you need. Drag the swatch, pick a color, move on.

If you later want richer behavior (mix shaders, masks, blended colors across booleans), click **Create Node Tree** and the panel switches to the editor hint described below.

## Surface

Once a node tree exists, a **Surface** sub-panel shows the shader behind the Material Output and its inputs inline. Pick **Matcap Shader** for one colour tinting the scene matcap, or **Mix Shader** to blend two shaders by an SDF field, and edit their inputs without leaving the panel:

![the Surface sub-panel with a Mix Shader: a Factor object, Smoothness, and two Matcap Shaders](../assets/material-mix-shader.webp)

A Mix Shader takes a **Factor** object whose field decides which side shows, a **Smoothness** for the width of the transition, and a **Shader A** and **Shader B** that can themselves be Matcap Shaders with their own colour. Nested shaders open below; anything deeper says *Edit in Node Editor*.

For the full graph, open a *Node Editor* area and switch its tree type to **Chisel Material** in the header. See [Node Editor](node-editor.md) for the available nodes and how they connect.

## Live render preview

Material edits update live in the viewport while the Chisel engine is active. There's no separate preview render. Use viewport shading at *Material Preview* level to see the matcap shading; *Solid* mode falls back to the proxy mesh and won't show your color choices accurately.

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

## See also

- [Node Editor](node-editor.md): the Chisel Shader Editor reference
- [Render Engine: Matcap](../render-engine/matcap.md): scene matcap that the per-object color multiplies into
- [Modifiers: Boolean](../modifiers/boolean.md): *Material Blend* width across boolean seams. A [Carve](../modifiers/carve.md) has none: its pocket always keeps the base material