A collection of things I've made while going through the material nodes course

[zeRgenTa]

Basic Shaders Section:

I made this candlestick to showcase the glass shader because I thought it would work well with the wax shader that was coming up.

I used an emissive volume instead of just an emissive surface for the flame.

I added a little texture to my skin shader, because perfectly smooth skin feels a little creepy to me.

Nothing much to say about this one, it’s just a set of cc0 textures on a plane.

I took a little detour to learn a little more about cloth sims. I think that I have a much better understanding of how they work now.

It really did surprise me how well the magic texture works for coarse woven fabrics.

[NP5]

Good textures, and flame. I tried a better flame as it was far more important than the wax! Lol. Not as good as yours though, I tried to make it without volume, just mesh and materials.

[zeRgenTa]

Thanks.
Now you got me thinking what the best way to make a flame using just the surface output.
My first thought would be to just use an image texture on a plane… I might try a few ways of doing it after I finish the course.

[Dwayne]

Well now I’ve got to buy a new course. These all look awesome.

[zeRgenTa]

@Dwayne
Thanks. Out of curiosity, did you ever find a use for that toon-shader I send you?

[zeRgenTa]

Procedural Shaders:

I used two textured and mixed them based on the normals to get the brushed look on all sides.

I had an idea of another way of doing this, so I tried it, and I think it turned out pretty well.
I used a voronoi texture instead of a noise texture, then plugged it into a white noise texture. I used the color of the white noise to offset the normals, which I think makes it feel more sparkly.

This was the result of me just playing around with the textures to see what came out.

I more or less followed the instructions on these, with just a little work on the colors and bump.

The setup he used for the basic sand wasn’t working quite right for me, so I improvised.
I used vector_math set to snapping plugged into a white noise texture.

[StephenWoods]

Nice work!

[zeRgenTa]

I’d like to say thanks for the course. Your reminders to keep things tidy, has really been appreciated.
I’m looking forward to seeing where the course goes.

[Dwayne]

I have plans to use it. I just have to quit studying Blender and actually start working with it. Id that makes sense. I’m planning on using it for a very short animation and possibly for a video series that I want to do about GURPS.

[zeRgenTa]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I was just curious how it worked; I never really used the shader in a project, it was more of a proof of concept. Because at the time, I didn’t see much in the way of toon shaders that worked with cycles.

I hope everything goes well, and you can make the series that you’re wanting to make.

[zeRgenTa]

Mud:

Gens:

Wood:

Extra Pictures

[StephenWoods]

That wood shader looks awesome on that table!!! The color of the mud is spot on too, it has that sludgey, clay colour and consistancy that makes it feel so wet and organic. The worn cube looks nice too, that will be a shader you will use over and over.

Great work!

[zeRgenTa]

Thanks. I didn’t even think of the plane looking like a table, but good to know.
It’s nice to hear that the type of mud that I was going for came through.
I hadn’t thought about reusing that shader; it was mostly a test of how to use the various generators that you taught in the course in a shader.

[zeRgenTa]

Brick.

That concludes all the lessons. There is one more section after this to practice what you’ve learned. You’re given an entire scene that you can texture as you see fit.

My thoughts on the course:
The course was well paced and struck a pretty good balance between the technical and artistic sides of procedural texturing. And that fact that it comes with a practice scene is a definite bonus.

[StephenWoods]

Thanks for the kind words, If i was able to make the course 30+ hours, I would have loved to go into more detail on some of the original Wizard Chambers materials. However, if there is enough interest, I’d be glad to do a deep dive or full tutorial on any of those materials for Youtube or as a future bonus lecture.

[zeRgenTa]

Due to some technical issues, I haven’t gotten around to taking a look at the Wizard Chambers yet. But I’ll be sure to take a look at the shaders when I get things sorted out; they sound like there could be some interesting in them.