Photorealistic Materials and Textures in Blender Cycles: Create impressive production-ready projects

Master texturing and rendering to create realistic materials in Blender like a pro by exploring the various tools and workflows and understanding the underlying mechanism of realism
Key Features

Understand the underlying workings in Blender that allow the creation of materials and textures
Masterfully render and present your 3D artwork by simulating highly realistic environments, lights, and visual effects in Cycles
Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

Blender is one of the most versatile tools in the 3D software industry, and with a growing audience and constantly expanding set of features, it has become more powerful, useful, and in demand than ever before. This updated fourth edition of Photorealistic Materials and Textures in Blender Cycles is an all-inclusive guide to procedural texturing, rendering, and designing materials in Blender, covering all aspects of the 3D texturing workflow.

The book begins by introducing you to Blender’s material nodes and material property functions, and then helps you create photorealistic textures by understanding texture maps and mapping them to 3D models. As you advance, you’ll learn to design high-quality environments and lighting using HDRIs and Blender’s lighting options. By exploring, breaking down, and studying the underlying mechanics that allow you to develop these elements, you’ll create any material, texture, or environment and use it to improve your artwork and present them in a professional way. Finally, you’ll discover how to correctly set up scenes and render settings, and get to grips with the key elements of achieving realism.

By the end of this book, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of materials, textures, shading, lighting, rendering, and all the critical aspects of achieving the highest quality with your 3D artwork.
What you will learn

Create realistic materials in Blender using material nodes
Understand physically based rendering (PBR) materials to create high-quality textures
Complete a 3D model design with materials by correctly mapping textures
Harness Blender’s texture painting features to create custom textures
Create realistic lighting and HDRI environments for your models
Control, animate, and optimize the 3D camera to prepare your scenes
Render your scenes into beautiful artwork

Who this book is for

If you want to learn how to create high-quality materials, textures, and renders to enhance your Blender skills and become a professional 3D artist, then this book is for you. Game developers, 3D artists, architects, animators, freelancers, and other professionals who aim for realism, quality, and aesthetics will also find this book useful. Although no previous material or texturing knowledge is required, a basic understanding of the Blender UI and modeling experience will help you make the most of this book.
Table of Contents

Creating Materials in Blender
Introducing Material Nodes
Mapping Images with Nodes
Achieving Realism with Texture Maps
Generating Texture Maps with Cycles
Creating Bumpy Surfaces with Displacement Maps
UV-Unwrapping 3D Models for Texturing
Baking Ambient Occlusion Maps
Introducing Texture Painting
Creating Photorealistic Textures on a 3D Model
Lighting a Scene in Cycles
Creating Photorealistic Environments with HDRIs
Preparing the Camera for Rendering
Rendering with Cycles