Beginner Blender 4.0 Tutorial - Part 5: Shading

Introduction

In this tutorial, we'll explore how to create basic materials and textures in Blender 4.0, focusing on a donut and its surroundings. This guide will help beginners understand material properties, object parenting, and texture painting, ultimately enhancing your Blender skills.

Chapter 1: Basic donut materials

1. Check Your Scene

   • Ensure only the camera, donut, icing, and light are visible in your scene.
   • Remove any hidden meshes that shouldn't be there.

2. Add Material to the Donut

   • Switch to Render Mode by clicking the render button.
   • Select the donut and go to the Material Tab.
   • Click on "New" to create a new material.
   • Change the Base Color to a nice pink.
   • Adjust the Roughness value to around 0.3 for a balanced look.

3. Add Material to the Icing

   • Create another material for the icing, starting with an orangey yellow base color.

4. Future Enhancements

   • Plan to add subsurface scattering later for a more realistic appearance.

Chapter 2: Creating the countertop

1. Add a Countertop

   • Press Shift + A, navigate to Mesh, and select Plane.
   • Scale the plane to make it larger, ensuring it can support the donut.

2. Parenting Objects

   • Select the icing (child) first, then the donut base (parent) by holding Shift.
   • Press Ctrl + P and choose "Keep Transform" to parent the objects.
   • Move the donut up on the Z-axis to rest it on the countertop.

Chapter 3: Texturing the countertop

1. Add Material to the Countertop

   • Create a new material for the countertop.
   • Under Base Color, click the dot next to it and select "Image Texture."

2. Download a Marble Texture

   • Visit a dedicated texture website like Poliigon (sign up for a free account).
   • Download a high-resolution marble texture.

3. Apply the Texture in Blender

   • Back in Blender, open the downloaded marble texture in the Image Texture node.
   • Adjust the roughness to achieve a realistic look.

Chapter 4: Adding a roughness map

1. Adding Detailed Roughness
   • Drag from the Image Texture node and add another Image Texture node for roughness.
   • Open the roughness map from the downloaded texture folder.
   • Change the color space to "Non-Color Data" to properly interpret the roughness information.

Chapter 5: Adding a normal map

1. Enhance Surface Detail
   • Add a Normal Map node (Shift + A > Vector > Normal Map).
   • Connect your normal map texture to this node.
   • Change the normal map's color space to "Non-Color Data" as well.

Chapter 6: Using the Poliigon addon

1. Install the Poliigon Addon
   • The Poliigon addon simplifies the texture application process.
   • It automatically handles downloads and node setup for you.

Chapter 7: Texture Painting

1. Prepare for Texture Painting

   • Isolate the donut by pressing the forward slash key.
   • Switch to the Texture Paint tab.

2. Create a New Image for Painting

   • In the Material Tab, change the Base Color property to an Image Texture.
   • Click "New" to create a new image called "donut base."

3. Begin Painting

   • Use the brush tool to paint directly onto the donut mesh.
   • Adjust brush color and strength for subtle effects.

Chapter 8: UV unwrapping

1. Understanding UV Unwrapping

   • Know that UV unwrapping allows a 2D texture to be applied to a 3D mesh.
   • Default objects like the torus are pre-UV unwrapped.

2. Painting Technique

   • Use the eyedropper tool to select colors directly from your texture.
   • Adjust brush settings for a more natural look.

Conclusion

This tutorial covered the essential steps to create materials and textures for your donut scene in Blender 4.0. You learned about material properties, object parenting, adding textures, and basic texture painting. Next, consider exploring more advanced shading techniques and practice with different textures to refine your skills. Happy blending!