  We explore the evolutionary behaviors of compact objects in a modified
gravitational theory with the help of structure scalars. Particularly, we
consider the spherical geometry coupled with heat and radiation emitting
shearing viscous matter configurations. We construct structure scalars by
splitting the Riemann tensor orthogonally in $f(R,T)$ gravity with and without
constant $R$ and $T$ constraints, where $R$ is the Ricci scalar and $T$ is the
trace of the energy-momentum tensor. We investigate the influence of
modification of gravity on the physical meaning of scalar functions for
radiating spherical matter configurations. It is explicitly demonstrated that
even in modified gravity, the evolutionary phases of relativistic stellar
systems can be analyzed through the set of modified scalar functions.
