One embodiment of a computer-implemented method for compiling a material graph into a set of instructions for execution within an execution unit includes receiving a first material graph having a plurality of nodes, wherein each node included in the plurality of nodes represents a different surface property of a material; parsing the material graph to generate an expression tree that includes one or more expressions for each node included in the plurality of nodes; and generating a set of byte code instructions corresponding to the material graph based on the expression tree, wherein the byte code instructions are executable by a plurality of processing cores included within the execution unit.