Material Debug Visualization

Material Debug Visualization modes are tools designed to help inspect, validate, and troubleshoot materials directly in the viewport. They allow you to isolate specific material properties, detect issues, and better understand how materials behave under physically based rendering.

These modes override the standard rendering and display selected material attributes or diagnostic views.

Why use material debug modes

Material debug modes are useful for:

• Verifying texture inputs (base color, roughness, metallic, etc.)
• Debugging incorrect material setups
• Checking UV mapping and tiling
• Identifying performance issues (mip usage, triangle size)
• Inspecting normals and shading behavior
• Detecting legacy or deprecated materials

How to access debug modes

You can access Material Debug Visualizations in two ways.

• Through graphics settings

  • Go to options
  • Display
  • Graphics
  • Scroll all the way down
  • Select visualization mode

• Through world editor

  • Open World Editor (F11)
  • Go to visualization window
  • Select material Visualization mode

Available modes

Base Color

Displays the final base color (albedo) of the material.

Use case: Check for incorrect color space, texture issues, or unintended tinting.

Base Color Debug

Opacity

Shows opacity as a grayscale value.

• Black = fully transparent
• White = fully opaque

Use case: Debug transparency and alpha masks.

Opacity Debug

Metallic

Displays metallic values in grayscale.

• 0 = dielectric (non-metal)
• 1 = metal

Use case: Ensure correct metalness workflow.

Metallic Debug

Roughness

Displays surface roughness.

• 0 = smooth (mirror-like)
• 1 = rough (diffuse)

Use case: Validate material response to lighting.

Roughness Debug

Ambient Occlusion

Displays AO contribution.

• Dark = occluded
• Bright = unoccluded

Use case: Check baked AO maps and ensure they are not too strong.

AO Debug

Clear Coat

Shows clear coat layer intensity.

Clear Coat Debug

Clear Coat Roughness

Displays roughness of the clear coat layer.

Clear Coat Roughness Debug

Emissive

Displays emissive color only.

Use case: Verify emissive textures and intensity distribution.

Emissive Debug

Normals (World Space)

Visualizes normals in world space.

• R = X
• G = Y
• B = Z

Use case: Detect flipped normals, incorrect normal maps, or shading issues.

Normals Debug

UV Debugging

UV0 / UV1

Encodes UV coordinates into color.

• R = U
• G = V

Use case: Verify UV layout and detect stretching or seams.

UV Debug

UV Checkerboard

Displays a checker pattern.

Use case: Identify UV distortion and scaling issues.

UV Checker Debug

UV Color Grid

Displays a detailed grid with hue variation and checkers.

Use case: Advanced UV validation including scale consistency and distortion.

UV Color Grid Debug

Advanced Debug Modes

Base Color Mip Level

Visualizes which mip level is used for base color textures.

• Color-coded per mip level

Use case: Detect overly large textures or incorrect mip usage. See Texture Streaming, Texture Quality and Performance for information about mipmaps, VRAM budgeting, and texture quality.

Mip Debug

Quad Overdraw (Triangle Size)

Shows how efficiently triangles utilize GPU pixels.

• Highlights small or thin triangles that waste performance

Use case: Optimize mesh density and reduce overdraw.

Quad Overdraw Debug

Wireframe (solid)

Displays mesh wireframe over the base color.

Use case: Inspect topology and geometry density.

Wireframe Debug

Material Deprecated

Highlights deprecated materials.

• Red = deprecated
• Green = valid

Use case: Identify outdated materials that should be updated.

Material Deprecated Debug

Layer Count

Displays number of material layers (legacy pipeline).

Use case: Debug complex or legacy layered materials.

Layer Count Debug

Material debug visualization is a powerful toolset for ensuring correctness, consistency, and performance of materials in a physically based rendering pipeline.