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Emissive surfaces

Emission makes a surface contribute its own visible radiance, including values above the display white level.

BoomBox and DamagedHelmet use core emissive textures. Select Sample model to compare them. Drag to orbit and scroll to zoom.

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PBRMaterial reference​

PBRMaterial from @luma.gl/experimental is a typed engine Material backed by the shared pbrMaterial shader module. Its material fields are defined by PBRMaterialUniforms from @luma.gl/shadertools. Pass them through createPBRMaterial(device, {uniforms}) or update them with material.setProps({pbrMaterial: {...}}).

The fields below are optional. Defaults are the shared shader defaults; imported assets can supply other values.

FieldTypeDefaultDescription
emissiveFactorReadonly<Vector3 | NumberArray3>[0, 0, 0]RGB color of the emitted radiance.
emissiveStrengthnumber1Multiplier for emissive radiance; values above 1 support bright HDR emission.
emissiveMapEnabledbooleanfalseEnables emissive texture sampling.

PBRMaterialBindings​

Texture resources are supplied separately through PBRMaterialBindings. Each field below is optional and accepts Texture | null. createPBRMaterial() derives map-enabled flags from these resources. Enable the corresponding Model shader define listed below when supplying a texture; the helper does not choose the model shader defines.

FieldModel defineDescription
pbr_emissiveSamplerHAS_EMISSIVEMAP: trueTexture resource for the emissive slot.

Supporting APIs​

createPBRMaterial​

createPBRMaterial(device, {uniforms, bindings, factory}) from @luma.gl/experimental returns a PBRMaterial. uniforms sets the fields listed above, bindings supplies material textures, and the optional factory shares a compatible binding schema across materials. The helper derives map-enabled flags from the supplied bindings; explicit uniform values take precedence.

MaterialFactory​

createPBRMaterialFactory(device) from @luma.gl/experimental creates a reusable engine MaterialFactory configured with the pbrMaterial shader module. Pass this factory to createPBRMaterial() when creating several compatible materials.

Material​

Material from @luma.gl/engine owns material uniforms and texture resources. setProps({pbrMaterial: {...}}) updates uniform values. Pass the material to a compatible Model through its material prop; models sharing it observe the same updates. Use clone({bindings: {...}}) when an appearance needs separate texture resources. Adding a texture or changing a shader feature may require matching defines and a compatible model shader layout.

See the materials guide and pbrMaterial reference.

Usage​

import {createPBRMaterial, type PBRMaterial} from '@luma.gl/experimental';

// device is an initialized Device.
const material: PBRMaterial = createPBRMaterial(device, {
  uniforms: {
    emissiveFactor: [1, 0.2, 0.05],
    emissiveStrength: 4
  }
});

// Pass material to a compatible Model through its material prop.

See emissive strength for HDR extension comparison samples.

Emission alone does not create a scene light or illuminate nearby geometry. Bloom is a separate rendering effect.

glTF support​

Core glTF supplies emissive color and texture. KHR_materials_emissive_strength scales emission beyond the core range.

See glTF materials and textures, glTF animation, and the extension support matrix for adapter details and current support limits.

All engine features