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Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook, Third Edition - Third Edition

By : Valenza

3.7 (10)

Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook, Third Edition

3.7 (10)

By: Valenza

Overview of this book

This book is aimed at those familiar with the basics of Blender, looking to delve into the depths of the Cycles rendering engine to create an array of breath-taking materials and textures.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Sections

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Overview of Materials in Cycles

1. Overview of Materials in Cycles

Introduction

Material nodes in Cycles

Procedural textures in Cycles

Setting the World material

Creating a mesh-light material

Using volume materials

Using displacement

2. Managing Cycles Materials

2. Managing Cycles Materials

Introduction

Preparing an ideal Cycles interface for material creation

Naming materials and textures

Creating node groups

Grouping nodes under frames for easier reading

Linking materials and node groups

3. Creating Natural Materials in Cycles

3. Creating Natural Materials in Cycles

Introduction

Creating a rock material using image maps

Creating a rock material using procedural textures

Creating a sand material using procedural textures

Creating a simple ground material using procedural textures

Creating a snow material using procedural textures

Creating an ice material using procedural textures

4. Creating Man-made Materials in Cycles

4. Creating Man-made Materials in Cycles

Introduction

Creating a generic plastic material

Creating a Bakelite material

Creating an expanded polystyrene material

Creating a clear (glassy) polystyrene material

Creating a rubber material

Creating an antique bronze material with procedurals

Creating a multipurpose metal node group

Creating a rusty metal material with procedurals

Creating a wood material with procedurals

5. Creating Complex Natural Materials in Cycles

5. Creating Complex Natural Materials in Cycles

Introduction

Creating an ocean material using procedural textures

Creating underwater environment materials

Creating a snowy mountain landscape with procedurals

Creating a realistic Earth as seen from space

6. Creating More Complex Man-made Materials

6. Creating More Complex Man-made Materials

Introduction

Creating cloth materials with procedurals

Creating a leather material with procedurals

Creating a synthetic sponge material with procedurals

Creating a spaceship hull shader

7. Subsurface Scattering in Cycles

7. Subsurface Scattering in Cycles

Introduction

Using the Subsurface Scattering shader node

Simulating Subsurface Scattering in Cycles using the Translucent shader

Simulating Subsurface Scattering in Cycles using the Vertex Color tool

Simulating Subsurface Scattering in Cycles using the Ray Length output in the Light Path node

Creating a fake Subsurface Scattering node group

8. Creating Organic Materials

8. Creating Organic Materials

Introduction

Creating an organic-looking shader with procedurals

Creating a wasp-like chitin material with procedural textures

Creating a beetle-like chitin material with procedural textures

Creating tree shaders – the bark

Creating tree shaders – the leaves

Creating a layered human skin material in Cycles

Creating fur and hair

Creating a gray alien skin material with procedurals

9. Special Materials

9. Special Materials

Introduction

Using Cycles volume materials

Creating a cloud volumetric material

Creating a fire and smoke shader

Creating a shadeless material in Cycles

Creating a fake immersion effect material

Creating a fake volume light material

Index

Index

Creating node groups

Single nodes (shaders, textures, input, or whatever) can be grouped together, and this is probably one of the best ways to organize our workflow.

Thanks to node groups, it's easy to store complex materials in ready-to-use libraries. It's possible to share or reuse them in other files, and they can also be used to build handy shader interfaces for easier tweaking of material properties.

Getting ready

Start Blender and open the 9931OS_02_interface.blend file.

How to do it...

Let's go to the Node Editor window directly:

Now box-select (place the mouse cursor in the Node Editor window, press B, and click and drag a box to include the nodes you want to select) the Diffuse BSDF and the Glossy BSDF nodes, as shown in this screenshot:
Box-selecting two nodes
Press Ctrl + G on the keyboard. The background of Node Editor changes, showing that now we are in Edit Mode inside a group. In fact, there are two selected nodes with a Group Input node and a Group Output node. Also...

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Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook, Third Edition

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