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.

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Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook
Enrico Valenza | Ton Roosendaal
Jun, 2013 | 280 pages
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Table of Contents (13 chapters)
Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook
Blender 2.6 Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Overview of Materials in Cycles
Overview of Materials in Cycles
Introduction
Material nodes in Cycles
Procedural textures in Cycles
Setting the World material
Creating a mesh-light material
Using displacement (aka bump)
2
Managing Cycles Materials
Managing Cycles Materials
Introduction
Preparing an ideal Cycles interface for material creation
Naming materials and textures
Creating node groups
Linking materials
3
Creating Natural Materials in Cycles
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
Creating a clean running water material
4
Creating Man-made Materials in Cycles
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 group node
Creating a worn metal material with procedurals
Creating a rusty metal material with procedurals
Creating a wood material with procedurals
5
Creating Complex Natural Materials in Cycles
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 planet Earth as seen from space
6
Creating More Complex Man-made Materials
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 brick wall material with procedurals
Creating a spaceship hull
7
Creating Organic Materials
Creating Organic Materials
Introduction
Creating a snake-like scaly material with image maps and procedurals
Creating a wasp-like chitin material with procedural textures
Creating a beetle-like chitin material with procedural textures
Creating a grass shader
Creating tree shaders – the bark
Creating tree shaders – the leaves
Creating a Gray Alien skin material with procedurals

Creating a Gray Alien skin material with procedurals

In this recipe, we will create a Gray Alien-like skin shader using Cycles procedural textures, as shown here:

Getting ready

Start Blender and open the 1301OS_07_alienskin_start.blend file, where there is an already set scene with an unwrapped Suzanne primitive object. The Suzanne mesh has been "alienizated" by a shape key to morph its monkey-like features into the head of a Gray Alien-like creature (in the Object Data window, under the Shape Keys tab, the alien shape keys with a Value of 1.000, and sliding the slider towards 0.000 gradually restore the original Suzanne shape).

On the second layer, there is a plane tracked (by a Damped Track constraint, in the Object Constraints window) to the Camera to stay perpendicular to the point of view, which we'll use to create a simple star backdrop for our alien Suzanne.

How to do it...

Let's start by setting the background image material first:

  1. Select the background plane and click on the New button...

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