As I understand it, the usual concept of a “material” in computer graphics, particularly 3D modeling, is a set of parameters (for example, color, specular reflectivity, IOR, light emission, etc.), some specified by textures and some by constants, that are sufficient to simulate the appearance of some substance when applied to some shape.
However, when computing the appearance of a single point on a surface (or within a volume), these parameters take on single values (which may have been sampled from a texture) which are sufficient for the shader or raytracer to compute the effect of hitting that surface with that ray(/viewing angle).
Is there an established/recognizable name for the full set (whatever the shading technique in use requires) of these single-point values, as distinct from the overall material? (Or, perhaps, are these too just “the material”?)
The best description that has been suggested to me so far is “material sample” (sample of the material) but ideally, I would like a term that does not as strongly suggest that it is a piece of a larger entity that already existed, but rather an “atom” itself that could perhaps, but does not have to, be assembled with others to create a material (including procedural generation that does not necessarily contain the original value at any point). I don't expect to necessarily find that, though.
While the reason I'm asking this is to come up with vocabulary I can use in my program, to keep this question reasonably objective, please do not propose newly invented names — I'm only looking for any established terminology that I could use or at least take inspiration from.
