CesiumJS Materials and Shaders

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name: cesiumjs-materials-shaders
description: "CesiumJS materials and post-processing — Material, Fabric JSON, MaterialAppearance, ImageBasedLighting, PostProcessStage, PostProcessStageLibrary, bloom, depth of field, ambient occlusion, FXAA, tonemapping, BlendingState. Use when defining Fabric materials for entities or primitives, configuring PBR image-based lighting, or adding screen-space post-processing effects."
---
# CesiumJS Materials, Shaders & Post-Processing

Version baseline: CesiumJS 1.142 (June 2026). All imports use ES module style.

## Material System (Fabric JSON)

`Material` defines surface appearance for **Primitives** through a JSON schema called Fabric. Materials compile to GLSL and are consumed by `MaterialAppearance` or `PolylineMaterialAppearance`.

### Built-in Material Types

**Surface:** `Color` (color), `Image` (image, repeat), `DiffuseMap`, `AlphaMap`, `SpecularMap`, `EmissionMap` (image, channel(s), repeat), `BumpMap`, `NormalMap` (image, channel(s), strength, repeat).

**Patterns:** `Grid` (color, cellAlpha, lineCount, lineThickness), `Stripe` (evenColor, oddColor, repeat), `Checkerboard` (lightColor, darkColor, repeat), `Dot` (lightColor, darkColor, repeat).

**Effects:** `Water` (baseWaterColor, normalMap, frequency, animationSpeed), `RimLighting` (color, rimColor, width), `Fade` (fadeInColor, fadeOutColor, maximumDistance).

**Terrain:** `ElevationContour` (color, spacing, width), `ElevationRamp` (image, minimumHeight, maximumHeight).

**Polyline:** `PolylineArrow` (color), `PolylineDash` (color, gapColor, dashLength, dashPattern), `PolylineGlow` (color, glowPower, taperPower), `PolylineOutline` (color, outlineColor, outlineWidth).

### Creating Materials