The sphere is a CPU reference

The preview says CPU Reference. The shape is a sphere. The material is untitled and marked ready. Absorption sits at nothing, alpha at full, anisotropy at nothing, and the base color is a light gray I have not bothered to name. That is the first frame, and it did not ask the machine for a graphics device.

I got tired of previews that only exist on the computer that has the right driver this week. A material is a recipe. Base color, metallic, roughness, emission, alpha, the rest of the list under the sphere. If I cannot see the recipe on a machine that is only a CPU, then I cannot review it on the machine where I am actually editing the file. The sphere is there so the sliders have a body. It is not there to win a screenshot contest against a path tracer.

The graph is the same object

The browser on the left is the vocabulary. Add scalars, a color constant, noise, a frame, a light, a geometry module. The viewport and the graph are tabs on one document. I do not want a graph that compiles into a different preview than the inspector I just dragged. Validate is a command, not a feeling. The status line at the bottom is allowed to say the source changed and has not been applied yet. That sentence is more useful than a sphere that quietly updates from a buffer I did not save.

Asset Studio is the host. The recipe types live underneath it, where a build can still run headless. The window is how I look. It is not where the definition is allowed to hide.

A white sphere is a result

A blank viewport would be a failure. A white sphere with the channels listed under it is a material that has not been given a color, which is a different fact. I can see that I have not worked yet. I can also see that the preview path is alive. Those are the two things I want before I start stacking noise.

When the sphere needs a GPU to be believed, I will put a GPU behind a second target and leave this one where it is. The reference that always runs is the one I will trust on a Tuesday.