What this book covers

Chapter 1, Creating Materials in Blender, introduces the fundamental principles of materials and material properties in Blender.

Chapter 2, Introducing Material Nodes, introduces material nodes, a Blender mechanism used for controlling and tweaking materials and material properties.

Chapter 3, Mapping Images with Nodes, covers how to display saved images and textures on 3D models using a special set of material nodes.

Chapter 4, Achieving Realism with Texture Maps, explains the functions of special images called texture maps, used for adding details and features to materials to make them more realistic.

Chapter 5, Generating Texture Maps with Cycles, discusses the creation of custom texture maps, allowing us to take any image texture and add higher levels of realism and detail to it.

Chapter 6, Creating Bumpy Surfaces with Displacement Maps, covers harnessing special texture maps to control the geometry of a 3D model and create unique surface details and imperfections.

Chapter 7, UV-Unwrapping 3D Models for Texturing, details unwrapping 3D models to allow for more precise texture mapping and creating custom textures.

Chapter 8, Baking Ambient Occlusion Maps, explores using the lighting from a scene to create special images to shade 3D models and make them appear more realistic.

Chapter 9, Introducing Texture Painting, covers how to create custom texture details with Blender’s special texture painting tools.

Chapter 10, Creating Photorealistic Textures on a 3D Model, applies the learned texturing tools and techniques by completing a 3D model with realistic materials and textures.

Chapter 11, Lighting a Scene in Cycles, introduces the various forms of lighting in Blender and covers how to use them to create beautiful lighting environments for our scenes.

Chapter 12, Creating Photorealistic Environments with HDRIs, explores 360-degree images of real-life environments to create custom world backgrounds and photorealistic lighting and reflections for our 3D projects.

Chapter 13, Preparing the Camera for Rendering, explores camera settings and properties and covers how to use them to create perfect angles for our renders.

Chapter 14, Rendering with Cycles, covers controlling and optimizing render properties to create the highest quality render results.