Book Image

Shading, Lighting, and Rendering with Blender EEVEE

By : Sammie Crowder
Book Image

Shading, Lighting, and Rendering with Blender EEVEE

By: Sammie Crowder

Overview of this book

Blender is the most important up-and-coming 3D software package in the world. EEVEE, a state-of-the-art real-time rendering engine is a fairly new addition to Blender and provides the capacity to create artwork at blazing speed, almost 12 times faster than Cycles. Lighting, Shading, and Rendering with Blender’s EEVEE provides a high-level overview of what EEVEE is capable of, then teaches users about Geometry Nodes, Rendering Techniques, using shortcuts like Kitbashing and Alphas to speed up scene creation, volumetrics, reflections, adding lights, cameras and even special effects like fire and smoke, all in EEVEE. All of this is in the context of creating actual scenes that readers will work through from start to finish. By the time a Blender Artist completes the book, they will have created three separate works that have challenged them to iterate and design with the full power of Blender’s EEVEE.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Section 1: Configuring in EEVEE – Mini-Project 1 – Stylized Scene
6
Section 2: Real-Time Rendering – Mini-Project 2 – Creating a Realistic Environment Concept
11
Section 3: Advanced Features – Mini-Project 3 – Creating a Sci-Fi Concept

Implementing a Reflection Cubemap

We've talked through the two most important light probes that are included with EEVEE. The third is the Reflection Cubemap probe. Reflection Cubemap probes create general reflectivity in the area that the Reflection Cubemap occupies. This Reflection Cubemap probe cannot be used by itself; it can only be used in conjunction with Screen Space Reflections (in the EEVEE Render properties panel). It also functions similarly to the Irradiance Volume probe, in that the reflections must be baked in order to take effect. This means that reflections need to be calculated once, and then they are cached and don't need to be baked again unless the scene changes. A Reflection Cubemap is different from a Reflection Plane, in that a Reflection Plane only provides reflections for a flat surface or localized plane, with reflections only being created on one axis. The Reflection Cubemap can provide reflections for an entire area. You might be asking though...