How do I make a glass or metal material in Blender?
Glass material
In the Shader Editor, add a Principled BSDF node to your material. Set Transmission to 1.0 to make it transparent, and set Roughness to a low value like 0.0 for clear glass or higher for frosted. The Base Color can be slightly tinted, and you may need to adjust IOR (Index of Refraction) to around 1.45 for typical glass.
For realistic glass in Cycles, enable caustics or use a Glass BSDF node instead. In Eevee, you'll need to enable Screen Space Refractions in the material settings and possibly use a Reflection Plane for better results.
- Set Transmission to 1.0
- Set Roughness to 0.0 for clear glass
- Adjust IOR to 1.45 (typical for glass)
- Enable Screen Space Refractions in Eevee
- Consider using a Glass BSDF node for simpler setup
Metal material
For metal, set Metallic to 1.0 and adjust Roughness to control how polished it looks. Base Color determines the metal's tint—for gold, use a yellowish color; for silver, a light gray. In Cycles, metals reflect their environment, so you'll need good lighting or an HDRI to see reflections.
You can also use the Metallic input with a texture map for painted or worn metal. For brushed metal, use an anisotropic roughness map or set Anisotropic in the Principled BSDF.
- Set Metallic to 1.0
- Adjust Roughness (0.0 for mirror, 0.5 for brushed)
- Set Base Color to the metal's tint
- Use an HDRI or environment lighting for reflections
- For brushed metal, increase Anisotropic value
Common mistakes
- Using a Transparent BSDF for glass instead of Transmission, which doesn't refract light properly.
- Forgetting to enable refractions in Eevee, resulting in glass that looks like opaque plastic.
- Setting Metallic to 1 but leaving Roughness at 0.5, which makes metal look dull and unrealistic.