Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
9
Special Materials
In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:
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Using Cycles volume materials
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Creating a cloud volumetric material
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Creating a "ire and smoke" shader
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Creating a shadeless material in Cycles
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Creating a fake immersion effect material
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Creating a fake volume light material
Introduction
In this final chapter, we are going to see some special materials, that is, materials that can
be used for special effects or for situations where very realistic results are not required, for
example, creation of volumetric effects (fire, smoke, mist, volumetric light, and so on) and
special materials to obtain peculiar results (shadeless images, alpha backgrounds, and so on).
Using Cycles volume materials
In all the recipes we have seen so far, Cycles used the Surface input socket and (very rarely)
the Displacement input socket for the bump effects of the Material Output node to make
the renderings. Assigning colors or textures to the surface of an object clearly means that
interaction between a ray of light and an object happens only at the surface level of the
object, and until this surface doesn't show what should be inside, that's OK. The surface
attribute is enough for a realistic rendering.
