material window

Material Editor

The accessible Material Editor allows you to create and edit materials in Unity using your keyboard and NVDA.

You can select shaders, change colours, assign textures and modify material properties through accessible controls.

Opening the Material Editor

Open the Material menu in Unity Access.

Two options are available:

• Create Material: Create a new material in your Unity project.
• Edit Material: Open and modify an existing material.

Creating a Material

1. Select Create Material from the menu.
2. Choose a name and save location for the material.
3. The material must be saved inside your project's Assets folder.
4. The Material Editor opens.
5. Select a shader for the material.
6. The material is created using your selected shader.

Materials are saved as .mat files.

If you cancel the save dialog, no material is created.

Editing an Existing Material

1. Select Edit Material from the menu.
2. The accessible Object Selector opens.
3. Choose the material you want to edit.
4. The Material Editor opens with the selected material's properties.

You can now modify the material's name, shader and available properties.

Renaming a Material

The material's name is displayed in an editable field at the top of the Material Editor.

Change the name in this field to rename the material.

Changing the Shader

A shader determines which properties are available for a material and how it appears in Unity.

To change the shader:

1. Navigate to the Shader field.
2. Open the accessible Object Selector.
3. Select the shader you want to use.
4. The Material Editor updates to display the properties supported by the selected shader.

Editing Material Properties

The available properties depend on the material's shader.

Colours

Colour properties provide three editable fields:

• Red
• Green
• Blue

Each field accepts a value between 0 and 255.

For example:

• Red: 255, Green: 0, Blue: 0 represents red.
• Red: 0, Green: 255, Blue: 0 represents green.
• Red: 0, Green: 0, Blue: 255 represents blue.
• Red: 255, Green: 255, Blue: 255 represents white.

Changing these values updates the material's colour while preserving its existing transparency.

Textures

Texture properties allow you to assign images and other compatible texture assets to a material.

To assign a texture:

1. Navigate to the relevant texture property.
2. Open the accessible Object Selector.
3. Choose a compatible texture from your Unity project.
4. Select the texture to assign it.

Imported images, including supported PNG files, can be selected when Unity recognises them as compatible textures.

Where supported, select None to remove an assigned texture.

Numeric Properties

Some shaders provide numeric properties that control their appearance.

These may include:

• Float: Enter a decimal number.
• Integer: Enter a whole number.
• Range: Enter a number within the permitted minimum and maximum values.
• Vector: Edit the individual numeric values.

The Material Editor provides the appropriate accessible controls for these properties.

Saving Changes

Changes to material properties are saved to the material asset in your Unity project.

Closing the Material Editor

Press Escape to close the Material Editor.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
Escape	Close the Material Editor

The Material Editor supports keyboard navigation and NVDA, allowing you to create and edit Unity materials without relying on the standard Unity material interface.