Summary

In this chapter, we learned how materials work and how nodes are created and connected in the Shader Editor area. We also learned how image textures can change the appearance of shaded objects and how they can store non-color data.

This was our first encounter with node trees, a generic visual programming approach that is not limited to shaders and is planned to expand to deformation and rigging in the future.

Node-based systems are flexible and powerful, but they benefit from scripted tools, like all other aspects of Blender.

Rendering is not the final step of production as compositing and editing follow in the computer graphics pipeline. But since this stage converts three-dimensional data into images, it’s usually considered the last step of the 3D workflow.

That ends our journey into how Blender scripting works. We have covered object creation, deformation, animation, and rendering, but most importantly, how tools are designed and implemented, and how...