In this recipe, we will create a sand material that looks like what is shown in the following screenshot, which is good for both close and distant objects:
Start Blender and switch to the Cycles Render engine. Then perform the following steps:
Delete the default Cube and add a Plane (press Shift + A and navigate to Mesh | Plane).
Press Tab to go to Edit Mode and scale it nine times bigger, with 18 units per side (press S, enter the digit 9, and press Enter). Go out of Edit Mode.
Go to the World window and click on the Use Nodes button under the Surface subpanel in the Properties panel to the right of the screen. Then click on the little square with a dot on the right side of the Color slot. Select the Sky Texture item from the pop-up menu. Set the Strength value to
1.900
.Select the Lamp, go to the Object data window, and click on the Use Nodes button. Then change the Type of...