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    single basicscorematerials

    CORE | Fundamentals of Materials and Shading in Blender

    Instructor:
    Ewa Wierbik-Ziąbka
    Subscribe
    ☆☆☆☆☆
     ( 25 )

    Understand the Basics of Materials and Shaders to Make Your 3D Renders Pop

    Materials and shaders are essential components in 3D rendering that define the appearance of surfaces. Materials determine how an object interacts with light, giving it properties like color, texture, and reflectivity. Shaders are algorithms that calculate these interactions, producing effects such as transparency, glossiness, and shadows.

    Having a basic knowledge of materials and shaders is crucial for rendering stunning images because they control the visual realism of your 3D models. Understanding how to create and manipulate them allows you to achieve the desired look and feel for your projects, making your renders more convincing and visually appealing.

    In this course, you'll learn the fundamentals of shader nodes, explore Blender's Eevee NEXT render engine, and master advanced rendering techniques. By the end, you'll have the skills to create stunning materials with Blender. Let's get started and bring your creativity to life! 

    Get Caught Up

    Are you brand new to Blender?

    These courses should help you get up to speed in no time.

    BLENDER BASICS: An Introduction to Blender 3D 4.X

    Free

    PRESS START: Your Simple First Blender Project

    What you'll learn in this Blender Class

    Chapter 1

    Introduction

    In this introduction chapter we will learn what version of Blender we need and we'll quickly go through all the lessons in the Materials and Shading course to see what we'll learn.

    Chapter 2

    The Basics of Blender Shader Nodes

    In this chapter we will learn basics or shader nodes, starting with the differences between the shader and the material, how to assign a material to the model or some parts of it. Then we will talk about available shaders and what we can use them for. At the end, we will learn how to organize the nodes to keep them nice and tidy.

    Chapter 3

    Overview of Eeevee NEXT

    In this chapter we will learn the basics of Eevee NEXT to use it in ours projects. We will explore some options and learn about screen space reflections, light probes, blended and dithered materials and shadows. We will also talk about the known limitations and how to find a workaround. We will also setup some of the materials to make them look good in Eevee, like glass, subsurface scattering or volumes.

    Chapter 4

    Rendering Materials and Shaders

    In this last chapter we will go through some render options that will help us to better understand what settings we should use to render a nice image. We will create realistic glass with dispersion and caustics to add more realism to our renders and learn how to use Light Path node.

    Let's create stunning materials!

    Watch the Course

    Get this course and 282 others by joining CG Cookie

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    Awarded upon completion:
    100xp +
    Course Curriculum
    25 Reviews
    • ☆☆☆☆☆
      Blake Bratu(FalloutSeeker) ·

      This course isn't that bad. I think this course is designed to just get you exposed to the different possibilities that shaders have to offer, and have you get used to just understanding how shaders work in general. I'm not sure what other people were expecting. This is a course that you'd probably come back to when you plan to apply a shader to something in your project in the future. This course I did light notes and sort of played around with what was offered, but I'm not worrying about remembering everything here.

    • W
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      Sean Ageman(WashedUpMedia) ·

      The course was a great introduction to materials and how to manipulate them using shaders. Loved the breakdowns on how to make each type of material, very useful and informative.   

    • ☆☆☆☆☆
      Jon Garcia(LadiesMan217) ·

      What is perfect about this Course, is that the topics are broken down into short individual lessons which A) Allows you to parse your learning, and B) It makes it easier to go back and brush up on the topics.
      CORE, but this course in particular should be taken AFTER the Blender Basics course, I was surprised at how fast I was picking up new concepts but the Blender Basics for sure helped out in that regard.

      The videos are short but there's a lot of them, and, there is not a single wasted word in any lesson, so, this demands your full attention, and you're gonna have to take notes because it is jammed pack with so much information.

      And to top it all off, there is a custom Blend file for each and every lesson/video.

      You can immediately tell the teacher wants to teach; I learned so much here.
      One of my favorite courses so far.

    • ☆☆☆☆☆
      Josh Usmani(JoshU3D) ·

      I saw some of the negative reviews before I started the course. I'm glad I didn't let those stop me. This was a very helpful and informative course. Like the other courses, it's a lot of info at once. I recommend trying all the exercises the instructor recommends and watching parts twice as needed. The final project was fun and reinforced the course content. 

      Also, I recommend following the CORE courses as CG Cookie recommends. The flow of information has been helpful too

    • D
      ☆☆☆☆☆
      Deadmanstroll ·

      A wealth of knowledge but too advanced for a beginner hopefully when this gets updated it will be a treat.

    • T
      ☆☆☆☆☆
      Maiil Tahiiev(ThatsHim) ·

      I love how much details have been given to this course, everything is explained pace by pace with lots of information. Theory comes with practice. Even though there had been some volume examples that were not made from scratch, the theory on how things work with volumes is very good and if I need to learn how to create some smoke volumes in the future, it is good that now I have something in my head about it. Thank you for this course!

    • m
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      Jamie Dodwell(mystifiedbytruth) ·
      I found this course to be frustrating, and unlike the first two CORE tutorials, absolutely unpersonal. The first two teachers added personal opinions about tools they were teaching, and the information was easy to follow. This tutorial series sounded like it was being read from a script, robotic in nature, and half of the time I had to adjust my ear-sense to interpret with 100% effort the mispronounced words. The concepts were rushed in explanation with unclear definition. The teacher expressed zero empathy or encouragement around these difficult Blender tools. I had to remind myself it was not my fault as a student, and hopefully my persistence and determination to learn this subject will get me through.
    • ☆☆☆☆☆
      Bornea (bornea) ·
      I think this tutorial might be too advanced for beginners. The tutorial is very technical and theoretical. I'm not new to Blender materials and shaders, so it's not too frustrating for me. However, if you're completely new to materials and shaders, I recommend watching a beginner-friendly tutorial first and creating a few real materials to understand how Blender's procedural system works. Then, come back to this tutorial to deepen your knowledge.
    • .
      ☆☆☆☆☆
      Bryan Williams(.Mamucho.) ·

      I have watched a few tutorials on Materials and shaders and I am always lost by the end of it. This is the first time that I have gotten an understanding of how to use some of these tools and experiment with them. A few things are completely over my head but it is nice to know how much is available. Thank you for this!

    • h
      ☆☆☆☆☆
      hawkline13 ·

      Sadly, this course was very frustrating. The examples were confusing and irrelevant. It was challenging to follow what the instructor said, even with subtitles. 

      I have learned a great deal from the previous core courses finding them well-paced and understandable, this one was a real disappointment.