Shader Basics: Creating Stunning Materials In Blender

Creating realistic nature materials in Blender 4.3 LTS

What you'll learn

How to navigate Blenders Shader Interface

Learn and understand what Shaders

Identify patterns used in shader creations

How to create water, wood, ice, rocks and other nature materials

Requirements

A computer running blender 4.0 or Blender 4.3 LTS

Description

Dive into the fascinating world of material creation with Blender's Shader Editor! This beginner-friendly course is perfect for those new to Blender or looking to build a strong foundation in crafting realistic and stylized materials.Throughout the course, you’ll learn how to:Understand the fundamentals of Blender’s Shader Editor.Create essential materials like wood, rock, water, ice, and bricks.Design a lifelike orange material, from peel texture to juicy details.Apply techniques for both realism and artistic flair.Each project is designed to guide you step-by-step, ensuring you gain confidence while having fun experimenting with textures, nodes, and shaders. By the end of this course, you’ll have the skills to bring your 3D models to life with stunning materials!At later sessions in the course you will learn how to create a custom node from you shader to expose important aspects such as color, size and lots of parameters that will showcase the full features of a procedural material. All project files are available for reference and modification. To follow along, we will be using Blender Version 4.3 LTS. This is a "Long Term Support" Version which means this version of Blender will be available for a while and still relevant. No prior experience is needed—just your creativity and curiosity. Let’s start creating!

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction and welcome to the course

Lecture 2 Accessing the Project Files

Lecture 3 Download and Install Blender 4.2.3 LTS

Lecture 4 2. Blender Setup

Lecture 5 Custom Workspaces and Blender View Setup

Lecture 6 HDRI Materials

Lecture 7 Shader Terminilogies and Definitions

Lecture 8 Shader Editor Overview

Lecture 9 8. Procedural Materials Overview

Lecture 10 9. Creating our First Basic Material

Section 2: Project 01 - Creating a Wood Material

Lecture 11 Wood Reference Study

Lecture 12 Creating a wood shader

Lecture 13 Adding Details to the Wood Material Part 01

Lecture 14 Adding Details to the Wood Material Part 02

Lecture 15 Adding Color

Lecture 16 Adding Surface Bumps

Lecture 17 Adding comments to the shader editor

Section 3: Project 02 Creating a Floor Tile Material

Lecture 18 Studying a tile texture

Lecture 19 18 Tile Shader setup

Lecture 20 19 Creating the Tile Base

Lecture 21 20 Additional Details and Color

Lecture 22 21 Adding Dirt

Lecture 23 21 Base Color Error Fix

Lecture 24 22 Organizing the node network

Section 4: Project 3 Ice Material

Lecture 25 Starting our Ice Creation

Lecture 26 23 Ice Material Final

Section 5: Project 4 Brick Wall

Lecture 27 24 Introduction to the Brick Material Lesson

Lecture 28 Studying Bricks

Lecture 29 26 Brick Lesson Start

Lecture 30 27 Brick Texture node setup

Lecture 31 28 Mortar Details

Lecture 32 29 Bricks Details A and B

Lecture 33 30 Coloring the Bricks

Lecture 34 31 Adding Bumps

Lecture 35 32 Extra Details

Lecture 36 33 Smears

Section 6: Project 5 Water Material

Lecture 37 34 Water Material Intro

Lecture 38 Adding bump details

Lecture 39 Creating The Dirt Layer

Lecture 40 Adding Extra Details to the Water material

Section 7: Project 6 Mossy Texture Material

Lecture 41 Using the Gradient Texture

Lecture 42 39 Mossy Concrete Material

Lecture 43 40 Detail Setup

Lecture 44 41 Setting up the Colors

Lecture 45 42 Detail overlay

Lecture 46 43 Overlay and wrapup

Section 8: Project 7 Textured Wall Material

Lecture 47 44 Textured Wall Start

Lecture 48 45 Adding Color

Lecture 49 46 Wall Details

Lecture 50 47 Wall Bumps

Lecture 51 48 Custom Node Groups

Section 9: Project 8 Tree Trunk Material

Lecture 52 49 Tree Trunk Material Intro

Lecture 53 50 Base Details

Lecture 54 51 Patterns and Details

Lecture 55 52 Additional Details

Lecture 56 53 Adding the Bumps

Section 10: Project 9 Orange Fruit Material

Lecture 57 54 Orange Material Start

Lecture 58 55 Adding Base Color

Lecture 59 56 Subsurface and Bumps

Lecture 60 57 Displacement

Section 11: Project 10 Rock Material

Lecture 61 58 Rock Material Start

Lecture 62 59 Color Pass and details

Lecture 63 60 Color Pass2

Lecture 64 61 Adding Bumps

Lecture 65 62 Additional overlay

Section 12: Project 11 Multilayered Rocky Material

Lecture 66 Introduction

Lecture 67 Base Setup

Lecture 68 Creating Initial Details

Lecture 69 Adding Small Rocks

Lecture 70 Adding the Large Rocks

Lecture 71 Displacement and Bump Maps

Lecture 72 Setting Details using Gradient Textures

Section 13: Masks and Parameters

Lecture 73 Creating Masks and exposing parameters from Nodes

Lecture 74 Creating a Circle Mask

Lecture 75 Creating Groups and Exposing Parameters

Lecture 76 Creating a Square Mask

Lecture 77 Creating the Square Mask Group

Section 14: Abstract Designs using Nodes

Lecture 78 Abstract Design Intro

Beginners or Intermediate Blender users who want to learn how to create materials and textures