Book Image

Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook

By : Enrico Valenza, Ton Roosendaal
Book Image

Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook

By: Enrico Valenza, Ton Roosendaal

Overview of this book

Cycles is Blender's new, powerful rendering engine. Using practical examples, this book will show you how to create a vast array of realistic and stunning materials and texture effects using the Cycles rendering engine. Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook is a practical journey into the new and exciting Cycles rendering engine for Blender. In this book you will learn how to create a vast array of materials and textures in Cycles, including glass, ice, snow, rock, metal and water. If you want to take your 3D models to the next level, but don't know how, then this cookbook is for you! In this practical cookbook, you will learn how to create stunning materials and textures to really bring your 3D models to life! Diving deep into Cycles you will learn Cycle's node-based material system, how to set-up a 3D scene for rendering, how to create a natural and man-made materials as well as the correct organization and re-use of Cycles materials to save you time and effort. To ensure that your creations look stunning you will learn how illumination works in Cycles, improve the quality of the final render and to avoid the presence of noise and fireflies. Each chapter of Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook builds on the complexity of the last so that by the end of this book you will know how to create an impressive library of realistic-looking materials and textures.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Creating an ice material using procedural textures


In this recipe, we will create a semi-transparent ice material.

Getting ready

Start Blender and load the usual blend file 1301OS_03_start.blend.

  1. Delete the subdivided cube and add a new cube primitive.

  2. In the Camera view, press Shift + F and by using the middle mouse button zoom the camera to better frame the cube.

  3. Select the background plane and delete it. Add a new plane, being still in edit mode, scale it eight times bigger. Go out of edit mode and move it one unit down on the z axis. Assign the Plane material to it.

  4. Set the World color to black.

  5. Select the cube, go in edit mode, and press W. In the Specials pop-up, select Subdivide. Press T and in the bottom of the Mesh Tools panel set the Number of Cuts value to 2. Go out of edit mode and press T again to hide the Mesh Tools panel.

  6. Go to the Object Modifier panel and add a Subdivision Surface modifier. Switch from Catmull-Clark to Simple and set the Subdivision levels to 5.

  7. Add a Displace modifier...