Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
33. Move them close to the first
Mix Shader
node and connect the
Color
out-
put of the
ColorRamp
node to the
Fac
input of the first
Mix Shader
node.
Set the
Layer Weight
node's blend factor to
0.200
.
34. Select and press
Shift
+
D
to duplicate the
Layer Weight
and the
Color-
Ramp
nodes and move them close to the
Diffuse
and
Glossy
shaders.
Connect the
ColorRamp
color output to the color inputs of the two
shaders and set the blend factor of the
Layer Weight
node to
0.700
.
35. Set the
ColorRamp
node's interpolation to
Ease
and move the white col-
or marker to the middle of the slider. Set its color to
R 0.266
,
G 0.491
,
B
0.753
. Change the black color marker to
R 0.500
,
G 0.000
,
B 0.139
. Click
on the
Add
button and change the new marker color to pure black.
How it works...
The three overlapping spheres technique dates back almost to 2004 (at least for
what relates to Blender), more precisely to the
How to make a realistic planet in
Blender
tutorial that I wrote at that time for Blender Version 2.23/2.30. This tutorial
is now outdated as far as materials are concerned, but the technique's basic con-
cepts are still working even in Cycles, that is, the Earth surface on the smaller of the
spheres, a clouds layer on a slightly bigger one, and the atmospheric Fresnel effect
of the bigger one, thereby enclosing the other two.
At first, we built the more complex of all the three shaders—the
Surface
material—
on the smallest of the three spheres:
• From step 1 to step 7, we built the shader for the continents, simply image
textures connected as color factor to a
Diffuse
shader and a
Glossy
shader. And from step 8 to step 12, we built the basic shader for the
oceans.
• At steps 13 and 14, we "split" the continent's component from the oceans
by using the
Earth-spec
map, a black and white image working as a sten-
