Greg Zaal shares important insights that will help you create more convincing materials.
Shading (the process of setting up materials) is an often over-looked step in the CG pipeline. I used to just play with the material settings until it looked a bit like what I was trying to make, and then move onto texturing thinking that that was all there is to it.
However, in my never-ending quest for realism I’ve come to realize that shading is in fact the most important step in creating something believable.
Of course modeling, texturing, lighting and all the rest are also very important, but shading is what determines how tangible your surfaces appear – it shows your audience what it might feel like to touch; how soft, sticky, or flexible it might be, and what it might be like to live in this new world that you’ve created with your render.
3 Comments
Fantastic article! I wish there were more articles on theory. :)
What is the best way to get the most out of the Fresnel settings in Blender Internal's materials as compared with the demonstrations here in these Cycles examples? With Blender Internal, there is a Fresnel option as one of the five diffuse shaders, as well as the Transparency and Reflectivity tabs each containing their own independent Fresnel options, and it's tricky to coordinate them without some guidelines. If tutorials and quicktips for Internal are even still acceptable to produce.
As someone that loves, actually, no, is obsessed with shading, I thought this was a great overview.:D