How to create realistic materials in Blender - Notes from blenderGuru

Blender notes for myself and other Blender learners

Image texture goes to diffuse shader which goes to surface of material output.

gloss shader is mixed with diffuse shader using mix shader before going to surface of material output.

The above is the base config.

To bring in realism, in addition to the above, bump map, reflection map and displacement map may be added.

                Bump map

                                Two types of bump maps

                                                Black & White

                                                                Black and white version of the image -> take non color data from it and add it to the height input of bump node. The normal output of bump node is fed to normal input of the both diffuse shader and glossy shader.

                                                Normal maps (needs special s/w and hence not covered now)

                Reflection map

                                Black and white version of the image with high contrast -> take non color data from it and add it to the factor input of the mix shader (of diffuse and glossy).              

                Displacement map

                                The surface needs to be subdivided and subsuf modifier added. Below subsurf add displacement modifier and give a new texture. In texture tab add the image (b/w with even higher contrast at the main crevices – large scale displacements).

 

Test all these with a blue luminous sphere.