Filament Material

Syntax highlighting for Google Filament material definitions (.mat) in Visual Studio Code.

Filament materials are two languages in one file, and this extension treats them that way:

• The material { ... } block highlights as structured data — property keys (quoted or unquoted), strings, numbers, booleans, and parameter types (float3, float4x4, sampler2d, ...) each get their own scope, with nested objects and arrays handled properly.
• fragment { ... }, vertex { ... }, and compute { ... } bodies embed C++ highlighting, the closest built-in match for Filament's GLSL dialect — MaterialInputs, materialParams, and your shader code all render as code, not string soup.

Line-comment toggling (//), bracket matching, and auto-closing pairs are included. Inside shader blocks the C++ comment commands apply; the material block offers only // because matc does not accept /* */ there.

Installation

Search Filament Material in the Extensions view, or:

ext install abnormalvector.filament-mat

Using Unity?

Unity also stores its (YAML) material assets as .mat. In a workspace that mixes both, scope the association by path in .vscode/settings.json — Unity materials live under Assets/:

{
    "files.associations": { "**/Assets/**/*.mat": "yaml" }
}

For a pure Unity workspace, "*.mat": "yaml" works, and any single file can be flipped with the language mode picker in the status bar.

Notes

• Blocks may be indented, but a block's closing brace is expected at the same indentation as its opening keyword — standard formatting — because TextMate grammars can't count braces through arbitrary shader code. A differently formatted file degrades to plainer highlighting rather than breaking.
• This is a community extension, not affiliated with or endorsed by Google or the Filament project.

Developing

git clone https://github.com/abnormalvector/vscode-filament-mat.git
ln -s "$(pwd)/vscode-filament-mat" ~/.vscode/extensions/abnormalvector.filament-mat-0.1.0

Reload VS Code; grammar edits apply on the next reload. samples/example.mat is a matc-verified material that exercises every scope the grammar knows — open it to eyeball changes.

License

MIT — © 2026 Abnormal Vector