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Blender Cycles: Lighting and Rendering Cookbook - Second Edition

Book Image

Blender Cycles: Lighting and Rendering Cookbook - Second Edition

Overview of this book

Blender provides a broad spectrum of modeling, texturing, lighting, animation and video post-processing functionality in one package. It provides cross-platform interoperability, extensibility and a tightly integrated workflow. Blender is one of the most popular Open Source 3D graphics applications in the world. Modern GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) have some limitations for rendering complex scenes. This is mainly because of limited memory, and interactivity issues when the same graphics card is also used for displaying and rendering frames. This is where Cycles rendering engine comes into play. Cycles is bundled as an add-on with Blender. Some of the features of Cycles is its quality, speed and having integrated industry standard libraries. This book will show you how to carry out your first steps in Cycles - a brand new rendering engine for Blender. In a gradual and logical way, you will learn how to create complex shaders and lighting setups to face any kind of situation that you may find in Computer Graphics. This book provides information on how to setup your first application in Cycles. You will start by adding lights, materials, and textures to your scene. When it's time for the final render, you will see how to setup Cycles in the best way. You will learn about a wide variety of materials, lighting, techniques, tips, and tricks to get the best out of Cycles. Further on in the book, you will get to know about animation and still shots, and learn how to create advanced materials for realistic rendering, as well cartoon style shaders. This cookbook contains a wide range of different scenes, proposed in a structured and progressive order. During this journey, you will get involved in the concepts behind every step you take in order to really master what you learn.

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Blender Cycles: Lighting and Rendering Cookbook - Second Edition
Dec, 2013 | 274 pages
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Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Blender Cycles: Lighting and Rendering Cookbook
Blender Cycles: Lighting and Rendering Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Introduction
Introduction
Free Chapter
1
Key Holder and Wallet Studio Shot
Key Holder and Wallet Studio Shot
Introduction
Setting up Cycles for the first run
Creating a three-point light setup in Cycles using mesh emitters
Learning environment lighting
Using the Glossy shader to create a clean metal material
Adding realism to the keys with a bump texture
Creating a rubber shader for the key holder
Adding color to the key holder
Creating a leather material for the wallet
Using the Cycles camera's depth of field
Setting the Cycles render parameters
2
Creating Different Glass Materials in Cycles
Creating Different Glass Materials in Cycles
Introduction
Creating a simple glass shader
Creating a glass full of water
Using default Cycles caustics
Creating custom fake caustics
Creating a custom and more versatile glass shader
Creating more complex glass materials
Obtaining a dispersion effect
Creating an absorption glass shader
3
Creating an Interior Scene
Creating an Interior Scene
Introduction
Creating fake portals to decrease the noise in the scene
Creating a parquet material
Creating materials for the plant in the scene
Creating a different kind of leather
Creating the materials for the lamp
Creating a carpet using hair particles
Setting up night lighting
Using IES files in Cycles
4
Creating an Exterior Scene
Creating an Exterior Scene
Introduction
Setting up the lighting with an external plugin
Creating the road material
Creating the grass material
Texturing the tree trunk and creating realistic leaves
Adding flowers to the scene
Creating the wood material for the table and the fence
Giving final touches to the image using render passes
5
Creating a Cartoonish Scene
Creating a Cartoonish Scene
Introduction
Setting up the environment and lighting
Creating skin, teeth, and other body parts
Creating the hair material
Creating the dress material
Compositing the scene
6
Creating a Toy Movie Scene
Creating a Toy Movie Scene
Introduction
Setting up the lighting
Creating a realistic plastic material for the characters
Creating the environment
Achieving a movie look using the compositor
7
Car Rendering in Cycles
Car Rendering in Cycles
Introduction
Setting up the lighting
Creating the car paint material
Creating the material for the tyres and the rims
Creating the material for headlights and other details
Compositing the scene
8
Creating a Car Animation
Creating a Car Animation
Introduction
Setting up the lighting
Creating a car paint material
Creating the materials for the exterior environment
Setting up the scene for the animation
Compositing the scene
9
Creating an Iceberg Scene
Creating an Iceberg Scene
Introduction
Creating the ice and snow materials
Creating the sea material in Cycles
Compositing the scene
10
Creating Food Materials in Cycles
Creating Food Materials in Cycles
Introduction
Creating grapes in Cycles
Creating parmigiano cheese
Creating bread
Learning the Branched Path Tracing render
Index
Index

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