Systems and methods are disclosed for leveraging rendering engines to perform multi-spectral rendering by reusing the color channels for additional spectral bands. A digital asset represented by a three dimensional (3D) mesh and a material reference pointer may be rendered using a first material spectral band data set and additionally rendered using a second material spectral band data set, and the results combined to create a multi-spectral rendering. The multi-spectral rendering may then be used as part of a synthetics service or operation. By abstracting the material properties, a material translator is able to return a banded material data set from among a plurality of spectral band sets, and asset material information may advantageously be managed apart from managing each asset individually.