Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Procedural textures in Cycles
In this recipe, we'll see the several kinds of textures available in Cycles and learn how
to use them with the shaders.
Similar to Blender Internal, we can use both procedural textures and image textures
in Cycles. However, the Cycles procedural textures are not exactly the same as in
Blender Internal; some are missing because of being replaced by an improved version
(for example, Clouds has been replaced by particular settings of the Noise Texture)
and a few are new and exclusive to Cycles.
Getting ready
We have already seen a simple construction of a basic Cycles material by mixing the
diffuse and the glossy ("specular") components of a surface. Now let's have a look at
the textures we can use in Cycles to further refine a material.
Because Cycles has a node-based system for the materials, the textures are not ad-
ded in their slot under a tab as it is in Blender Internal, but they just get added in
the
Node Editor
window and directly connected to the input socket of the shaders or
other kind of nodes. This gives a lot more flexibility to the material creation process,
because this way a texture can be used to drive several options inside the material
network.
1. Starting from the previously saved
start_01.blend
blend file, where we
already had set a simple scene with a cube on a plane and a basic ma-
terial, select the cube and go to the
Object Modifiers
window under the
Properties
panel to the right of the UI.
2. Assign to the cube a
Subdivision Surface
modifier, set the
Subdivisions
level to
4
, both for
View
as for
Render
.
3. In the
Object Tools
panel to the left of the 3D window, under
Shading
, set
the subdivided cube (let's call it
spheroid
from now on) to
Smooth
.
4. Just to make things clearer, click on the color box of the
Glossy BSDF
shader to change it to a purple color (
RGB
set to
0.800
,
0.233
, and
0.388
respectively). Note, only the glossy reflection part on the spheroid is now
purple, whereas the rest of the surface, the diffuse component, is still
greenish.
5. Save the blend file and name it
start_02.blend
.
