Wood is a texture that doesn't require a too complex shader to recreate procedurally. But it can be a bit difficult to know exactly how to arrange the shader nodes. So how do we create a procedural wood texture in Blender? To create a procedural wood texture: Navigate to the Shading Workspace Create a Texture […]

So you may be wondering how we’re able to freely use the software without cost, yet Blender is still able to make the money used for further developments. Blender makes money through the development fund, donations, merchandise, training and subscriptions. According to the 2020 financial report Blender made over 80% of its income from the […]

Curves are a type of object in Blender that can be used in order to create a surface along a curve expressed by a mathematical function, which can be easier to alter and modify compared to an ordinary mesh. Converting a curve into a mesh is very simple and there are many reasons that you […]

Wood ends up in a lot of different scenes and models. Knowing that we may need a wood material quite often how exactly do we create one in Blender? To create a wood material in Blender, we can use premade wood image textures that we can find on several material libraries on the internet. We […]

There are many times in Blender where we will need to rotate and flip textures, whether we're working with an image texture or a procedural shader. so how do we do it? To Flip a texture in Blender: Navigate to the shading workspace Connect the texture's vector through a mapping node invert the scale values […]

Sometimes when we're modeling in Blender we may want to create a much more complex scene or object such as a castle. Modeling every individual element is very time consuming for such a large an intricate object. With kit bashing we can cut a lot of the modeling out and get straight to designing the […]

Blender is very good for creating photorealistic shaders and renders, but sometimes we may want to create a more stylized or cartoonish shader in Blender, this is usually achieved by using a CEL shader. A cel shader sometimes also called cell shader, is a non-photorealistic shader that uses simplified shading to convey form. It is […]

When creating an object in Blender we will often need to give our objects a material/texture/shader. Material and Shader are often used interchangeably as well as textures being mentioned very often. So what do these terms mean? In Blender materials contain node graphs that make up the bulk of a materials content as well as […]

When texturing a model in Blender we will often need to work with UV maps. Occasionally we may run into really confusing issues that can be a bit difficult to solve. Here are the common mistakes that we will cover in this article. If you are new to UV mapping I suggest that you check […]

By default when using Cycles or Eevee in Blender, there are no post-processing effects, including glow. This means that no matter how bright an object is it will not radiate that glow effect that we so often see in a regular photograph when a bright object is present. So how do we set it up? […]

FBX is one of the most common file formats used to move 3D models and assets between different applications. When using Blender together with other software there are many cases where we will need to import and export FBX files. Whether that be for exporting a model to a game engine or other some other […]

In Blender, modifiers are great automatic operations used to modify an object’s geometry non-destructively. In particular we will be discussing the Solidify modifier, a common and versatile modifier used to add thickness to an object, which can become very valuable for your workflow. To use a solidify modifier, select your object. Next, click on the […]

Mixing materials and textures is essential for creating stunning shading results in Blender. There is rarely a single clean material that on its own can capture the essence of a surface and therefore mixing becomes a crucial part of the shading workflow. This is how we can mix materials in Blender: Setup a material for […]

You have probably heard of PBR. But what is it and how do we use it in Blender? PBR stands for Physically Based Rendering. It is a loosely defined framework for storing data that is needed to recreate real-world material in a digital 3D format. We use it to store different material properties in individual […]

When we learn about materials and texturing in Blender it is easy to get stuck on tasks that for senior artists have become obvious and even hard to cover. Scaling textures is one such task that often is done without thinking. But for beginner artists it can be a challenge to find the right place […]

Sometimes when we're working on a project in Blender, we may want to composite our shadows separately or isolate them from the object they're being cast onto such as when we're compositing a render over a background. So how do we do that? To make an object a shadow catcher in Blender follow these steps: […]

When creating meshes in Blender we will often need to consider poly flow and best practices for creating geometry, it commonly recommended to keep our meshes quad based, but why is this? Quads are preferred to triangles because they're easier to work with and in general have more consistent results such as smoother and more […]

When transferring three-dimensional (3D) content across devices or platforms, a common file format to use is OBJ. Blender supports exporting and importing OBJ files, as does many other 3D software. To export or import an OBJ file in Blender, in the top left corner click File > Export/Import > Wavefront (.obj). Continue reading to learn […]

When we're setting up an armature or animation in Blender, we will often find ourselves using Inverse Kinematics. We may want to control the direction that an IK chain bends in. Pole targets can help us achieve this. So, what is a Pole Target? Pole Targets are a Component of an IK chain that allows […]

When animating in blender we will often come across IK and FK, they are the two most common methods for handling the posing and animation of our armatures, though the two can often be hard to distinguish. So, what is the difference between IK and FK? IK and FK are two ways of handling motion […]