Doc:Tutorials/Materials/BSoD/Intro exercise

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[edit] Materials and Textures in Blender

[edit] What is a material?

Blender, like any 3D design suite, is essentially a simulation program. Points are placed in a pseudo 3D space (Vertices) and these points are joined to form faces. Faces are then lit with simulated lights and a simulated camera is placed looking at our pseudo object. All this has to be done before our simulated object and world can be rendered in all its glory.

Exactly the same is true of Materials and Textures in any 3D system. They are the tools that help you simulate a surface color or property that will turn a boring grey plastic looking object into something much more interesting.

This could be based on a photorealistic interpretation of a real material or on some artistic style, like a cartoon, or an impressionistic painting.

In other words Materials and Textures offer an enormous palette of color, style, and effect, that can be applied to the untextured 3d objects and turn them into a truly inspiring picture or animation.

Of course, this means that there is no magic button to press in Blender, or any 3D package, that will automatically produce realistic, or good looking materials. You have to make decisions about many settings and choices, as well as apply observational and artistic skills. All of these choices can appear daunting to the beginning 3D artist. Indeed many competent artists find it difficult to move from more traditional forms of art because of the apparent need to know every 3D tool before they can attempt a picture or animation. However, that’s why we are here to help you. Over the coming sections you will have the chance to quickly simulate realistic looking materials as well as a strategy to apply to any material simulation. You will also see that you can start achieving with only a few tools at your disposal. Gradually building your knowledge and confidence as you progress. Fortunately you have chosen a very capable and easy to understand 3D suite with Blender. It made the task easier for me than many commercial packages that I had tried before.

[edit] The Material UI

Hopefully you will be familiar with the Blender User Interface (UI). The default setup of the screen is where you will perform all the magic. Both in creating great mesh objects and also in designing inspired materials to bring those meshes to life. You are able to modify the default screen to suit the way you like working but Blender has some additional UI choices that can help with each aspect of the design process.

[edit] Screen Layouts

You can choose a range of screen setups to help :-

• Model – with a layout to aid the creation of objects
• Animation – with a layout to aid the animation process
• Sequencer – with a layout to help you edit your shots into a film. Did you realise that Blender has a very capable non-linear editor for both animations and sound?
• Scripting – with a layout that will help the budding programmer produce python additions to Blender, and
• Materials – you guessed it a layout to aid the creation of materials.

[edit] The Materials Layout

After a little practice with Blender you may wish to change the layout of any of these pre-built UI windows. As you will probably notice my camera view is a little different from the default. I have set a darker frame around the camera view to emphasis the framing of any shot. I find this very useful when I am setting a shot or working out whats in frame from a materials viewpoint.

[edit] Useful Modifications from the Default

This was done by selecting the camera.

• Point with the mouse cursor at the camera frustum and  RMB to select it.
• Move the cursor to the buttons panel and press F9 for the Editing buttons.

Apart from all the interesting settings for the camera, like the focal length, you will see a button called passepartout .

• Select this and adjust the alpha slider below it to adjust the darkness and transparency of the frame around the camera view.

[edit] Panning a view rather than Rotating

I have also found that I prefer that the middle mouse button Pans the view rather than Rotates it when I press and hold the  MMB and drag over any of the view windows. To change this from the default, which is ROTATE you have to:-

1. point your cursor at the bottom line of the main menu and drag it down to reveal the Blender options.
2. Select the View & Controls button, and
3. From the revealed options select Pan View from the Middle Mouse Button: option.

Remember to return the main menu to the top of the screen by dragging the bottom line of the main menu back up.

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It is also possible to change any of the windows to the User Preferences view. To make these changes select the Display Window type selector in the header of the window and select User Preferences from the displayed list.

Once you have made the changes required you can return the window to its former use by  LMB that type selector again and choosing the window type you require.

Any window can be changed to any of the window types available which makes the UI very flexible in use.

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At this point you can save your slightly modified Blender UI by pressing Ctrl U which saves a new version of the default setup.

You can add entirely new UI setups and make them available from the screens setup selector. But that’s beyond the scope of this tutorial. To learn more go here http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/PartI/Interface/Screens

Of course you are not forced to make these suggested changes to be able to create materials and textures in Blender. But they both work for me. In fact, over the coming pages I will offer other tips that may help you become more productive in your artistic efforts in Blender.

Redirects to fix

• BSoD/Introduction to Materials/part1a → Doc:Tutorials/Materials/BSoD/part1a
• Blender Summer of Documentation → BSoD
• Manual/Manual → Manual