Clearcoat lets you define a layer of varnish or lacquer for a material – think varnish over wood, or the final coat in car paint. It has its own independent reflectivity, its own independent Bump map separate from the Base layer, and Absorption parameters that control how it colors the Base layer beneath it.

Sheen lets you adjust the way a material reflects light, most commonly for fabrics and other materials – think satin or velvet, and how those reflect light differently from non-fabrics at the grazing angles.

35 Presets for quick starting points, or to “reverse engineer” good settings for the various parameters for the most common materials you will want to create.

Metalness Workflow which lets you specify whether your material is a metal or a non-metal. This can also be mapped to blend between the two different ways materials behave in the real world.

Edge Color for metals, which can be quickly and easily defined with a single color which will be ideal in 99% of cases – but when the ultimate in realism is required, there is the option to use a Complex IOR instead.

Anisotropy correctly affects both reflection and refraction simultaneously.

Oren-Nayar shading model which the more technically-minded among you will know gives more realistic fall-off for the Baser layer at grazing angles.

The materials also allow for easy import from third–party applications such as Allegorithmic’s Substance tools, and Quixel’s Megascans.