The thin absorbent paper of Chinese ink painting and calligraphy. The paper a sumi-e brush dropped onto in the Tang Dynasty and the paper a sumi-e brush still drops onto today. Despite the colloquial 'rice paper' name (which dates to a Western misidentification), xuan paper is made from the bark of the blue sandalwood tree (Pteroceltis tatarinowii) and rice straw — not rice. The Japanese parallel is washi, made from paper mulberry (kozo) bark. Both are exceptionally thin, absorbent enough to read brushstrokes as bleeding character, archival enough to survive a millennium when made traditionally. The traditional xuan-paper village (Jingxian County, Anhui) has been producing the canonical grades since the Tang Dynasty (7th-9th c). Awagami in Japan is the canonical washi source. Buy from specialty Asian-art supply houses; Dick Blick and SAA carry mid-grade.
Bast-fiber paper traditionally made from blue sandalwood (Pteroceltis tatarinowii) bark + rice straw (xuan paper) or paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera, kozo) bark (washi); modern mid-grade adds bleached wood pulp. Standard weights 20-50 g/m² (xuan) and 30-100 g/m² (washi) — both very light. Two grades distinguished by sizing: shen (raw, unsized — high absorbency, the painting / running-script grade) and shu (sized with alum + animal glue — the vegan version sizes with synthetic, lower absorbency, the formal calligraphy / fine-line painting grade). The traditional method involves cooking the bark with caustic soda or wood ash, beating to pulp, sheet-forming on bamboo screens by hand, sun-drying on wooden boards — the artisanal grades from Jingxian villages still follow this process. Tensile strength is exceptional for the weight (kozo fibers are 6-10 mm long vs. 1-3 mm for wood pulp), which is why washi survives folding and conservation handling. Acid-free when made traditionally; archival permanence per ISO 9706 confirmed by museum-grade testing.
Principled BSDF defaults derived from the sphere matte finish. Reasonable seed for Blender, Substance, Keyshot, Rhino — tune per material. Or grab the whole library at once: ForMaterials library →
# finish: matte albedo #f4ecdc metallic 0.00 roughness 0.75 ior 1.45 transmission 0.00 clearcoat 0.00 sheen 0.00 anisotropic 0.00
{
"albedo": "#f4ecdc",
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.75,
"ior": 1.45,
"transmission": 0.0,
"clearcoat": 0.0,
"sheen": 0.0,
"anisotropic": 0.0
}
# Blender 4.x — Principled BSDF
# Xuan Paper (Chinese Rice Paper, Sumi-e and Calligraphy) · finish: matte
import bpy
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="mat_paper_rice_xuan")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
bsdf.inputs["Base Color"].default_value = (0.9047, 0.8388, 0.7157, 1.0)
bsdf.inputs["Metallic"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Roughness"].default_value = 0.750
bsdf.inputs["IOR"].default_value = 1.450
bsdf.inputs["Transmission Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Coat Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Sheen Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Anisotropic"].default_value = 0.000
# KeyShot 11+ — lux Python API, Generic material
# Xuan Paper (Chinese Rice Paper, Sumi-e and Calligraphy) · finish: matte
# Run from Window → Scripting Console
import lux
mat = lux.createMaterial(name="mat_paper_rice_xuan", materialType="Generic")
mat.setProperty("diffuse", (244, 236, 220)) # 8-bit sRGB
mat.setProperty("metallic", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("roughness", 0.750)
mat.setProperty("indexOfRefraction", 1.450)
mat.setProperty("transparency", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("coatingWeight", 0.000)
{
"_format": "Substance Designer / Painter \u2014 pbrMetalRough constants",
"_about": "Xuan Paper (Chinese Rice Paper, Sumi-e and Calligraphy) \u00b7 finish: matte",
"baseColor": {
"r": 0.9047,
"g": 0.8388,
"b": 0.7157
},
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.75,
"ior": 1.45,
"opacity": 1.0,
"anisotropyLevel": 0.0,
"_notes": "Channels listed are the standard Substance pbrMetalRough output. Drop into a Uniform Color node per channel, or as the constant input on a layered stack."
}{
"asset": {
"version": "2.0",
"generator": "ForMatter"
},
"materials": [
{
"name": "mat_paper_rice_xuan",
"pbrMetallicRoughness": {
"baseColorFactor": [
0.9047,
0.8388,
0.7157,
1.0
],
"metallicFactor": 0.0,
"roughnessFactor": 0.75
},
"extensions": {
"KHR_materials_ior": {
"ior": 1.45
}
}
}
]
}# USD Preview Surface — UsdShade.MaterialLook prim attributes
# Xuan Paper (Chinese Rice Paper, Sumi-e and Calligraphy) · finish: matte
def Material "mat_paper_rice_xuan" {
token outputs:surface.connect = </mat_paper_rice_xuan/PreviewSurface.outputs:surface>
def Shader "PreviewSurface" {
uniform token info:id = "UsdPreviewSurface"
color3f inputs:diffuseColor = (0.9047, 0.8388, 0.7157)
float inputs:metallic = 0.000
float inputs:roughness = 0.750
float inputs:ior = 1.450
float inputs:opacity = 1.000
float inputs:clearcoat = 0.000
token outputs:surface
}
}
Asian Paper Conservation literature; Awagami Factory technical bulletins.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
A local-first library of materials, processes, applications, and finishes — equal weight, citable everywhere, so a student can move from "what is this" toward "what's actually buildable here, now, by me." Part of the renato.design ecosystem — sibling of Plenum, Specimen, Ingenue, gesture, graf, and the Renato Rhino plug-ins. Form and matter, inseparable.
Half of teaching materials is teaching how the material is made into the thing. The standard subscription library was always light on that half. The wedge here isn't better samples or a prettier interface — it's treating Process as a peer entity, not a footnote.
Conway, Lefteri, Forty, Sparke, ASM, GIA. Every voice: Voices.
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