Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook, Third Edition

Book Image

Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook, Third Edition

By : Enrico Valenza

Book Image

Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook, Third Edition

By: Enrico Valenza

Overview of this book

Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook Third Edition

Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook Third Edition

Credits

About the Author

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

About the Reviewers

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Overview of Materials in Cycles

Overview of Materials in Cycles

Material nodes in Cycles

Procedural textures in Cycles

Setting the World material

Creating a mesh-light material

Using volume materials

Using displacement

Managing Cycles Materials

Managing Cycles Materials

Preparing an ideal Cycles interface for material creation

Naming materials and textures

Creating node groups

Grouping nodes under frames for easier reading

Linking materials and node groups

Creating Natural Materials in Cycles

Creating Natural Materials in Cycles

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 Man-made Materials in Cycles

Creating Man-made Materials in Cycles

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 node group

Creating a rusty metal material with procedurals

Creating a wood material with procedurals

Creating Complex Natural Materials in Cycles

Creating Complex Natural Materials in Cycles

Creating an ocean material using procedural textures

Creating underwater environment materials

Creating a snowy mountain landscape with procedurals

Creating a realistic Earth as seen from space

Creating More Complex Man-made Materials

Creating More Complex Man-made Materials

Creating cloth materials with procedurals

Creating a leather material with procedurals

Creating a synthetic sponge material with procedurals

Creating a spaceship hull shader

Subsurface Scattering in Cycles

Subsurface Scattering in Cycles

Using the Subsurface Scattering shader node

Simulating Subsurface Scattering in Cycles using the Translucent shader

Simulating Subsurface Scattering in Cycles using the Vertex Color tool

Simulating Subsurface Scattering in Cycles using the Ray Length output in the Light Path node

Creating a fake Subsurface Scattering node group

Creating Organic Materials

Creating Organic Materials

Creating an organic-looking shader with procedurals

Creating a wasp-like chitin material with procedural textures

Creating a beetle-like chitin material with procedural textures

Creating tree shaders – the bark

Creating tree shaders – the leaves

Creating a layered human skin material in Cycles

Creating fur and hair

Creating a gray alien skin material with procedurals

Special Materials

Special Materials

Using Cycles volume materials

Creating a cloud volumetric material

Creating a fire and smoke shader

Creating a shadeless material in Cycles

Creating a fake immersion effect material

Creating a fake volume light material

Index

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Preparing an ideal Cycles interface for material creation

Before starting with the actual organization, it's a good idea to prepare a material creation screen to be saved in your Blender preferences.

It is possible, in fact, to prepare a basic scene setup that includes the elements and the settings we need to do the job best.

In any case, just take this recipe with a grain of salt, that is, take it as more of a suggestion or as a starting point that you can eventually modify to better suit your needs.

Getting ready

Start Blender and in the upper menu (the Engine to use for rendering button), switch to Cycles Render.

How to do it...

We are now going to customize the Default screen:

Split the 3D view into two horizontal rows. To do this, move the mouse cursor onto the lateral edge of the window. The cursor changes to a double arrow icon. Right-click on the edge, and from the little pop-up menu that appears, select Split Area (or click in the top-right corner of the window and move it).
Change the...