Procedural Materials In Blender
What you'll learn
- How to navigate the shader editor .
- Useful shortcuts to speed up your workflow.
- How texture coordinates and values are processed in shaders.
- How to set up an image-based PBR texture.
- How to create procedural surface imperfections.
- How to create custom glass shaders for added flexibility.
- How to manipulate built-in procedural textures like Voronoi and Noise.
- How to create textures from scratch by using maths.
- How to bake textures to images for use outside Blender .
Requirements
- A computer that can run Blender 2.9 onwards.
Description
Introduction to Procedural Textures
The materials we use in a scene, how they react to light and how they interact with one another has a huge impact on our ability to tell stories through our work but stepping into node-based procedural workflows can be very daunting for the first time.
In this course, Erin will walk you through from the basics of navigating the Shader Editor all the way up to creating a fully procedural shader from scratch and covering any maths involved. The course is project-based to ensure that skills are applied immediately and you’ll be given extra challenges throughout to further consolidate what you’ve learned! All the necessary assets are provided so you can just focus on the course content.
In this course you will learn:
How to navigate the shader editor
Useful shortcuts to speed up your workflow
How texture coordinates and values are processed in shaders
How to set up an image-based PBR texture
How to create procedural surface imperfections
How to create custom glass shaders for added flexibility
How to manipulate built-in procedural textures like Voronoi and Noise
How to create textures from scratch by using maths
How to bake textures to images for use outside Blender
By the end of this course, you will have the foundational skills in place to be able to explore your own ideas and to generate and adjust materials to suit your purposes. Erin Woodford has been using Blender for 12 years and started worked professionally as a 3D artist and educator alongside their degree. While their professional practice has taken them across many different areas, from stylised TV work, to photoreal product and architectural visualisation, the main emphasis in their personal work has always been around exploring and sharing procedural workflows within Blender.
Remember to join our Facebook group and Discord for course help, support and showing your work.
Who this course is for:
- Beginner Blender artists wanting to get to grips with procedural materials.
- Blender artists new to proceduralism.
Course content
- Preview00:59
- Preview00:52
- Preview02:31
- Preview10:04
- 10:21Useful Shader Shortcuts
- 06:43A First Material
- 05:30Understanding Values in Shaders
- 15:14The Texture Coordinate Node
- 08:23The Math Node Part 1
- 08:47The Math Node Part 2
- 12:44A Screentone Shader
- 11:50The MixRGB Node
- 02:39Introduction to the Kitchen Scene
- 10:45Creating PBR Shaders
- 08:34Manipulating Procedural Textures
- 10:39The Bump Node
- 06:54Randomising Colour per Object
- 06:05Assigning Materials
- 12:09Liquid Inside a Glass
- 12:30Creating a Tile Pattern
- 14:44Making the Tile Shader
- 11:12Creating Group Nodes
- 15:17Baking Textures
- 05:55Extra Challenges and Wrap Up
Instructors
![Canopy Games](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.7 Instructor Rating
- 627 Reviews
- 3,849 Students
- 6 Courses
Founded by Michael Bridges and Yann Burrett, Canopy Games delivers high quality game making tutorials with a focus on mastery though play and community engagement. We've been working as online and offline educators for years and are passionate about bringing the best possible courses to people who want to learn new skills.
- 4.8 Instructor Rating
- 19 Reviews
- 100 Students
- 1 Course
In 2009, aged 14, I made my first Blender tutorial about bump maps in Blender 2.49b. While a lot has changed in Blender over the last decade, my interest in creating compelling materials has not. It's easy to slap a texture on something but with a little bit of procedural knowledge, you can push materials much further into storytelling and creating believable scenes.
I'm fascinated with procedural workflows, whether that's in shaders, or modelling with Geometry Nodes or Sverchok, or even outside Blender with Houdini and Grasshopper. I find the ability to have truly interconnected, reactive systems very exciting!
My background is art and design, I'm a qualified Cabinet Maker and Interior Designer, and have no formal mathematical training beyond high school so don't be put off by proceduralism using maths. I stand by the idea that Blender is one of the best arenas for learning maths due to the immediate visual feedback.
I look forward to working with you in this course!
- 4.8 Instructor Rating
- 593 Reviews
- 6,179 Students
- 6 Courses
I am a self-confessed technology geek and love teaching people new things.
I think it is a real shame that so many people carry around such wonderfully capable devices yet do nothing but the basics on them. Computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones can do much more than most people know. I would like to guide, reassure and educate people about using their technology to add to their lives
I have been playing, yes playing, with technology for as long as I can remember and I still do that today! Admittedly these days with other commitments I do have to watch what I spend as technology can burn a very deep hole and quickly.
As my parents will testify, I have always been inquisitive! even if it meant taking something apart to see how it worked. Of course not knowing how to put it back together again. To this day I love learning new things and developing myself as a person.
Despite my tech background I remain firmly grounded and talk to people using everyday language, unnecessary techno-babble drives me bonkers. This allows me to chat with people with limited knowledge on a subject and help them understand more.