Bevy Pbr Materials

Bevy 0.18 — PBR Materials

When to use this skill

• Texturing a mesh with the built-in physically based shader.
• Writing a custom Material (e.g. for stylised shading, dissolve effects, world-space shaders).
• Wondering why your scene looks less glossy after upgrading to 0.18.
• Compiler error on AsBindGroup::label() (now required).
• Compiler error on MaterialPlugin:: { prepass_enabled: ... } (fields removed in 0.18).

Canonical pattern — StandardMaterial

use bevy::prelude::*;

fn main() {
    App::new()
        .add_plugins(DefaultPlugins)
        .add_systems(Startup, setup)
        .run();
}

fn setup(
    mut commands: Commands,
    mut meshes: ResMut>,
    mut materials: ResMut>,
) {
    let mesh = meshes.add(Cuboid::new(1.0, 1.0, 1.0));
    let material = materials.add(StandardMaterial {
        base_color: Color::srgb(0.8, 0.3, 0.2),
        perceptual_roughness: 0.4,
        metallic: 0.1,
        ..default()
    });

    commands.spawn((
        Mesh3d(mesh),
        MeshMaterial3d(material),
        Transform::from_xyz(0.0, 0.5, 0.0),
    ));

    commands.spawn((
        Camera3d::default(),
        Transform::from_xyz(0.0, 2.0, 4.0).looking_at(Vec3::ZERO, Vec3::Y),
    ));

    commands.spawn((
        DirectionalLight::default(),
        Transform::from_xyz(2.0, 4.0, 2.0).looking_at(Vec3::ZERO, Vec3::Y),
    ));
}

Custom Material — 0.18 shape

Custom materials with the Material trait and AsBindGroup are covered in detail at [references/custom-material.md](references/custom-material.md).

Topics

| Topic | Reference | |-------|-----------| | PointLight, DirectionalLight, SpotLight field shapes; GlobalAmbientLight; shadow cascades | [references/lighting.md](references/lighting.md) | | Plane3d, Cuboid, Sphere, Circle, Cylinder, Capsule3d, Torus constructors and orientation gotchas | [references/mesh-primitives.md](references/mesh-primitives.md) | | Material trait methods, AsBindGroup attributes, ShaderRef variants, MaterialPlugin wiring | [references/custom-material.md](references/custom-material.md) |

Gotchas (0.18)

• MaterialPlugin:: { prepass_enabled, shadows_enabled, ..default() } is gone. Override the Material trait methods instead — see [references/custom-material.md](references/custom-material.md).
• AsBindGroup::label() is required. The #[derive(AsBindGroup)] macro generates it automatically; hand-rolled impls must add it.
• PBR shading fix. 0.18 corrected a long-standing Fresnel/specular issue that made everything look "overly glossy". Materials authored for 0.17 may look less reflective in 0.18 — re-tune perceptual_roughness / reflectance.
• Mesh component wrappers. Use Mesh3d(handle) and MeshMaterial3d(material_handle) — the wrappers are what the renderer queries on.
• Plane3d::new takes Vec2 for half_size, not a scalar — see [references/mesh-primitives.md](references/mesh-primitives.md).
• Color::rgb(...) is gone — use Color::srgb(...) or Color::linear_rgb(...).
• Directional light position is ignored — only rotation matters. See [references/lighting.md](references/lighting.md).

See also

• bevy-cameras — what's looking at the materials.
• bevy-migration-0-17-to-0-18 — MaterialPlugin field removal, AsBindGroup::label requirement.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: chrisgliddon
• Source: chrisgliddon/bevy-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.