A microporous PTFE film (the same polymer as Teflon, expanded so it's full of pores 200 times larger than a water-vapor molecule and 20,000 times smaller than a water droplet) laminated between a face fabric and an inner backer. Water vapor — sweat, breath — passes through. Liquid water — rain, splash — does not. This is the trick W. L. Gore's son Bob discovered in 1969 (Bob Gore stretched PTFE quickly and it expanded rather than tearing) and patented in 1976, and it is the canonical waterproof-breathable shell material for the last fifty years. Used in jackets, gloves, boots, sleeping bag covers, tents. The 3L (three-layer) construction is the toughest and most expensive — face / membrane / backer all bonded — and is what serious mountaineering and ski shells are made from.
Three-layer laminate: (1) face — a tightly-woven nylon or polyester ripstop or twill (40–200D) with a DWR finish; (2) membrane — expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) microporous film, ~1.4 billion pores per cm², pore size 0.2 micrometers; (3) backer — a knit tricot or scrim fabric for hand and to protect the membrane. Hydrostatic head 28,000+ mm (waterproof by any standard; the certification minimum is 13,000 mm). MVTR (moisture vapor transmission rate) 17,000–25,000 g/m²/24hr (high). Total laminate weight 100–200 g/m² depending on face fabric. Seams must be taped with heat-bonded GORE-SEAM® tape — needle-and-thread sewing leaves micro-leaks that DWR alone cannot reseal. The DWR finish on the face is the visible signal of waterproofness — when DWR fails (water sheets rather than beads on the face), the face soaks and the laminate's breathability collapses against the wet face fabric, and the wearer feels clammy even though the membrane itself is still working. Periodic DWR re-treatment (Nikwax, Granger's) restores the system.
Principled BSDF defaults derived from the sphere fibrous finish. Reasonable seed for Blender, Substance, Keyshot, Rhino — tune per material. Or grab the whole library at once: ForMaterials library →
# finish: fibrous albedo #1c1c20 metallic 0.00 roughness 0.70 ior 1.45 transmission 0.00 clearcoat 0.00 sheen 0.70 anisotropic 0.50
{
"albedo": "#1c1c20",
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.7,
"ior": 1.45,
"transmission": 0.0,
"clearcoat": 0.0,
"sheen": 0.7,
"anisotropic": 0.5
}
# Blender 4.x — Principled BSDF
# Gore-Tex® 3-Layer Laminate (ePTFE Membrane) · finish: fibrous
import bpy
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="mat_gore_tex_3l_membrane")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
bsdf.inputs["Base Color"].default_value = (0.0116, 0.0116, 0.0144, 1.0)
bsdf.inputs["Metallic"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Roughness"].default_value = 0.700
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 = 0.700
bsdf.inputs["Anisotropic"].default_value = 0.500
# KeyShot 11+ — lux Python API, Generic material
# Gore-Tex® 3-Layer Laminate (ePTFE Membrane) · finish: fibrous
# Run from Window → Scripting Console
import lux
mat = lux.createMaterial(name="mat_gore_tex_3l_membrane", materialType="Generic")
mat.setProperty("diffuse", (28, 28, 32)) # 8-bit sRGB
mat.setProperty("metallic", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("roughness", 0.700)
mat.setProperty("indexOfRefraction", 1.450)
mat.setProperty("transparency", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("coatingWeight", 0.000)
{
"_format": "Substance Designer / Painter \u2014 pbrMetalRough constants",
"_about": "Gore-Tex\u00ae 3-Layer Laminate (ePTFE Membrane) \u00b7 finish: fibrous",
"baseColor": {
"r": 0.0116,
"g": 0.0116,
"b": 0.0144
},
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.7,
"ior": 1.45,
"opacity": 1.0,
"anisotropyLevel": 0.5,
"_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_gore_tex_3l_membrane",
"pbrMetallicRoughness": {
"baseColorFactor": [
0.0116,
0.0116,
0.0144,
1.0
],
"metallicFactor": 0.0,
"roughnessFactor": 0.7
},
"extensions": {
"KHR_materials_ior": {
"ior": 1.45
},
"KHR_materials_sheen": {
"sheenColorFactor": [
1.0,
1.0,
1.0
],
"sheenRoughnessFactor": 0.7
}
}
}
]
}# USD Preview Surface — UsdShade.MaterialLook prim attributes
# Gore-Tex® 3-Layer Laminate (ePTFE Membrane) · finish: fibrous
def Material "mat_gore_tex_3l_membrane" {
token outputs:surface.connect = </mat_gore_tex_3l_membrane/PreviewSurface.outputs:surface>
def Shader "PreviewSurface" {
uniform token info:id = "UsdPreviewSurface"
color3f inputs:diffuseColor = (0.0116, 0.0116, 0.0144)
float inputs:metallic = 0.000
float inputs:roughness = 0.700
float inputs:ior = 1.450
float inputs:opacity = 1.000
float inputs:clearcoat = 0.000
token outputs:surface
}
}
W.L. Gore & Associates Gore-Tex technical literature; Gore-Tex care-and-repair guides.
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, with cost-over-volume curves, trade-off profiles, equipment-tier filters, and second-life paths layered onto the data 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's Material World on raw materials, Lefteri's Making It on processes, Forty's Concrete and Culture, Sparke's Design in Context, Bürdek's Design: History, Theory and Practice of Product Design, Schröpfer's Material Design on materials in architecture, Winchester's The Perfectionists on tolerance, Minshall's Your Life Is Manufactured on the global supply chain, von Busch's Making Trouble on material activism, Were's How Materials Matter, Hegger / Drexler / Zeumer's Basics Materials, Untracht and McCreight on metalsmithing, USDA Forest Products Lab on woods, GIA on gemstones, Schott / CoorsTek / Toray / Owens Corning datasheets, MakeItFrom for verifiable property numbers, ASM Handbook, ISO standards. Museum holdings draw from the Met, MAD, V&A, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Newark Museum of Art, British Museum, Heard Museum, Smithsonian NMAI, Eiteljorg Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Grand Rapids Art Museum — collection-record permalinks only, designer overview pages and exhibition listings excluded. Voice blocks now ride on every entry kind — material, process, application, and finish — and include Ruskin on iron, Anni Albers on twining, Greg Lynn on the shred-and-teeth NURBS lineage, Pugin on the metal that won't be hammered, Barthes / Yanagi / Benjamin channeled within their philosophy; Sparke, Bürdek, Forty, Conway, Schröpfer, Minshall, von Busch, Lefteri, Pat Pruitt, Mary Lee Hu, Tom Joyce, Albert Paley, and the rest of the contemporary makers quoted verbatim with citation. All cited.
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