Book Image

Blender 3D Incredible Models

By : Arijan Belec
Book Image

Blender 3D Incredible Models

By: Arijan Belec

Overview of this book

Blender is a massively popular and powerful 3D program, with versatile modeling abilities that make it a great way to enter the 3D modelling world. Blender 3D Incredible Models is an extensive guide for those new to hard-surface modeling with Blender, helping you understand the complete range of tools and features it offers and how to employ those efficiently to create realistic models. You’ll be led through progressively more challenging modeling projects— from an assault rifle and an army tank to a sci-fi spaceship model—giving you a glimpse of all the skills you’d need in Blender’s vast ecosystem of features and functionality, ranging from textures, rendering, and UV mapping to lighting, rigging, and beyond. Each engaging project builds upon the last until you’re equipped with everything you need to tackle your own modeling challenges, whatever they may be. By the end of this Blender book, you won’t just know how to create the models covered here, but you’ll be able to turn your own concepts and references into 3D Blender models too!
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Introduction to Hard Surface Modeling
3
Part 2: Modeling an Assault Rifle
7
Part 3: Modeling a Sci-Fi Race Ship
10
Part 4: Modeling a T-72 Tank

Creating materials

In this section, we will learn how to create materials to give color to our currently colorless model. Before we start creating materials, we must understand how Blender creates materials using Material Nodes.

Understanding Material Nodes

When creating materials in Blender, we usually use Material Nodes. Material Nodes are operations created in Blender to control the appearance of a material. There is an incredible variety of things that can be created with the wide array of nodes available to us in Blender, but we will not go into too much detail regarding the functions of each node. Instead, we will learn how to use some simple nodes to create basic materials.

Let’s go over a few steps to set up our Workspace for material creation and create a simple material:

  1. Enter the Shading Workspace by clicking on the Shading button at the top of the screen.

Figure 4.1 – Shading Workspace

  1. Expand the Shader Editor...