{"id":5421,"date":"2020-12-25T05:13:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-25T05:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renderguide.com\/?p=5421"},"modified":"2020-12-04T09:54:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T09:54:20","slug":"blender-shader-nodes-tutorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renderguide.com\/blender-shader-nodes-tutorial\/","title":{"rendered":"Blender Shader Nodes Tutorial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This Blender Shader Nodes Tutorial explains how to create powerful shaders. We will cover an introduction and a lot of step by step examples in Blender<\/a>. Nodes is the thing that is unique about Blender and 3D Design overall. Nodes allow users to create really complex shaders<\/strong> by combining a lot of different values and properties via nodes themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blender Shader Nodes are a really powerful function<\/strong> that has a lot of possibilities but at the same time can be really confusing <\/strong>and even frustrating. Especially for new users. In this article we will try to dispel these misunderstandings and show you the very basics of using Nodes in Blender<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though we are looking at the basics of the Nodes, they are still quite complex for a total beginner. If this is one of the first times you are using Blender<\/strong> – check out our Blender Basics Tutorial<\/a> first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting Acquainted with the Blender Nodes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To start working with the nodes<\/strong>, first of all we need to open a proper window. Window swap is done on the top right of the window that you want to change. The one that we are looking for is called Shader Editor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alternatively<\/strong>, you can open a Shading workspace<\/strong> from the top of the interface. It has a screen divided between a viewport with Material Preview shading turned on and Shading Editor. Also there is a File Browser and Image Editor on the right. We don\u2019t really need those last two, so you can get rid of them if you want. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the Shader Editor that is on the bottom you should see two nodes already there<\/strong>. If they are not – just select the default cube that is in the center of your viewport. Or create a new material<\/strong> for the object, if you want to use it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nodes are – Principled BSDF Shader<\/strong> and another one is the Material Preview<\/strong>.  You should already know the first one, because we had a good look at this shader in our Blender Materials<\/a> article. All the settings that you see here – are absolutely the same that you see in the Material Properties<\/strong> window of the Properties Editor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Material Output<\/strong> is the main node of any setup. The node that is connected to the Material Output is the result that you see in the viewport<\/strong>. You can delete connections between nodes by clicking and dragging away the connection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you do that here – this would mean that there is nothing connected to the material of our object<\/strong>. Meaning that the object has no material whatsoever. Blender indicates this by making an object look totally black <\/strong>in the viewport:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To add more nodes<\/strong> – you can either use the \u201cAdd\u201d button on the top of the Shader Editor or use a [Shift+A] shortcut. There would be a lot of options for you to select. I would recommend sticking with the Shaders for now<\/strong>, because they should be the most familiar out of the all options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are a lot of shaders available here, each with its own purpose and settings. I recommend you to add a bunch of them and practice moving nodes arounds, connecting outputs to inputs and so on<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then you can Delete any node<\/strong> by right clicking on it and selecting Delete[X].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The last thing you should know before proceeding is how nodes connect<\/strong>. You should have noticed that we have seen some inputs on their left and outputs on their right.<\/strong> So if you want one node to receive information from another one – you need to connect the output with an input. Additionally, you can connect one output with multiple inputs at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Another important thing is to color match the inputs and outputs<\/strong>. In our case the output is green, which means that the input also should be green. Grey outputs and inputs are universal<\/strong> and can be used with different colors without problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While connecting other colors that do not match will usually result in an error indicated by red color and quite possibly – pink object<\/strong>. When the object looks like this, it means that there is an error somewhere in its material. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Creating Blender Nodes Setups<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Just connecting a single shader to the Material Output is obviously not why we need a Shader Editor and all the nodes. They can interact, you can mix nodes, add textures to them and so on<\/strong>. Besides, simply changing a shader and its settings can be done from the Material Properties window without a Shader Editor at all. That is exactly what we did in the Blender Material Tutorial<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mixing Shaders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Firstly let\u2019s try an easy thing. Mixing two different shaders<\/strong>. For this to work we need to add a specific node<\/strong> that will take the two shaders, mix them and then output this as a single information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This node is called \u201cMix Shader<\/strong>\u201d and can be found still amongst the Shaders in the Add menu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This Node has two green inputs and one output<\/strong>. So we can add any of the two shaders that we like, connect them to the Mix Shader and then connect that one to the Material Output. The \u201cFac\u201d option<\/strong> on the Material Shader decides which of the two connected shaders to show more. Default is 50\/50. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The result speaks for itself – it is clearly seen that the object is emissive and at the same time reflective<\/strong>, which were the values of the two different shaders. Besides, we mixed green and red colors<\/strong>, which gave us a yellow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that is basically how you mix shaders.<\/strong> It is that easy. But I would suggest you try things around and mix different shaders a bit. Especially try mixing the two Principled BSDF ones, because they are basically the most important<\/strong>. And it can lead to some really interesting results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For example the material that I have made above is quite interesting. You can see that instead of mixing the colors, like we have seen before – the Cube itself is solely green, while only the reflections are red<\/strong>. That is because one of the Shaders is really rough, while the other is both Metallic and Reflective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding Textures in Blender<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The other things that we can do with Nodes is add textures<\/strong> to our material. This is also done from the Add menu, just this time look at the Texture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are a bunch of them and it would be really good for you to try them out, but just for now – follow me. Let\u2019s add a Noise Texture<\/strong>. It only has grey and yellow outputs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The thing is that you can sometimes not color match<\/strong> the inputs and outputs. Especially when it is the yellow output. I am not totally sure, but it does work when we join the Noise texture directly to the Material Output<\/strong>. By the way, I use spheres to show textures, because they do look quite better than cubes here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Even though this does work – it does not mean that this is a good practice<\/strong>. Simply because right now my sphere has only the color information and nothing else, not even shadows. So it would be much better to use Shader in-between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It already does look better. I have mentioned before that grey is the universal output and input color. So you can try connecting the Fac value to the Base Color<\/strong> to see what it does, because almost all textures has the Fac option of some sort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And it turned out to be basically the same texture, but just black and white.<\/strong> Each of the texture nodes also have a black and white variant. And it is important because when working with materials and maps – black and white images are very useful<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, things like Roughness Map, Metallic Map, Specular Map<\/strong> and so on – all are black and white. Where the white means 0 and the black is 1. Let\u2019s connect the Fac to the Roughness value of the Principled BSDF and check the result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You can see, that where the image was white – it is reflective<\/strong> now and where it was black – it became rough<\/strong>. And the grey is something in between<\/strong>. So the black and white variants of textures are really useful and can be used to give a lot of details to the object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This works almost with all textures available in the menu<\/strong>. You can use one texture as a Base Color, another one for Metallic and third one for Roughness or in any way you want. This is definitely something that you need to experiment with<\/strong> and try out for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Combining Two Techniques<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The two techniques that we just learned – the adding textures to the shader and mixing two shaders – can be also <\/strong>combined together to create<\/strong> a more complex material<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So firstly you create a Principled BSDF, to which you connect the texture or textures that you want. Then you create a second shader that you want to mix in and can add textures to that one too. And finally you use Mix Shader node to combine the two<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It can be difficult <\/strong>to come up with something really good, but trying things around and experience will get everyone there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Conclusion Blender Shader Nodes Tutorial<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In this Blender Shader Nodes article we have only looked at the very basics of Shader Editor and Nodes in Blender<\/strong>. There are much and much more to these. And this tutorial should give you a head start in learning everything about the Blender Nodes. See also our other Top 3D Model Reviews<\/a> and Blender Tutorials<\/a>.<\/p>\n