# Materials  ### Creating Materials Creating materials in Cheetah 3D is fun and easy to do. But… creating materials that do *exactly* what you want can be *very* difficult. We’ll start by showing how to create a bunch of simple, typical materials from scratch. Going beyond the basics requires a combination of experimentation, imagination, and an intuitive grasp of 3D math and how rendering works. - [Simple Materials Without Nodes](/9.1_Simple_Materials_Without_Nodes/) - [Image-based Materials](/9.2_Image_based_Materials/) - [Transparent Materials](/9.3_Transparent_Materials/) - [Understanding Nodes](/9.4_Understanding_Nodes/) - [Building Procedural Materials](/9.5_Building_Procedural_Materials/) - [Reflective Materials](/9.6_Reflective_Materials/) - [UV Mapping](/9.7_UV_Mapping/) - [How Materials Work](/9.8_How_Materials_Work/) - [Node Descriptions](/9.9_Node_Descriptions/) - [Faking It](/9.10_Faking_It/) - [The Math of Material Nodes](/9.11_The_Math_of_Material_Nodes/)