Something we realized is though there are plenty of amazing video blender tutorials all over our site, there wasn’t a clearly defined starting point. As with anything there has to be a beginning or an initial handshake of “Hey, nice to meet you” to really get started on the right foot.
This is why we have created this dedicated “Getting Started with Blender” page to help break the ice and get introductions out of the way.
In this blender video we will cover the basics of materials within Blender.
Craving more Blender?
Finished with the getting started series? Be sure to visit these next Citizen Membership courses
I recently discovered Blender a few days ago and now i am really interested in it. Thankyou for the wonderful tutorials.
I agree , I’m working with blender for over a month now .. I LOVE IT.
I couldn’t believe that it was free when I found it.. I underestimated it.
Blender really is a powerful tool ,
Thank you Blender Foundation , for opening the door for people without thousands of dollar to waste on a 3d software.
D.Demirel
*spend
for some reason, it will not show the preview at all. what should i do?
oh wait, never mind XD
i clicked the wrong circle
I was wondering why when you change the color, the preview AND the selected object automatically change, yet when you adjust the transparency, ONLY the preview changes. How do you apply that change to your selected object too?
Hi Brock,
Transparency will only show in the viewport if you select the object, go to the Object properties and enable “Transparency” under the extra draw modes.
-Jonathan
Hey, thanks Jonathan!
One more question…
I am trying to learn this all while also learning the python code behind it by <> and watching what it displays with my actions…
But I only see that a materal is added, not of any properties…
more specifically, how can I, only scripting, apply transparency and also view it (per my previous question)?
Thanks again for your reply
Hi Brock,
These would actually be very good questions for Patrick Boelens. I don’t know anything about scripting. If you send a email to [email protected] then I can forward it over to him
-Jonathan
Hi Jonathan, this seems like a very stupid question but I have the same problem with textures: the preview changes but the selected object doesn’t (and also the rendered object doesn’t)!
What do I have to do?
Thanks
Hey Jonathan
Can you please tell me where these object properties are? I’m desperate looking for them since a while.
Thanks a lot
timo
hi jonatan i didnt understand how to change the transpornecy to be on the model can you make a new video about that please?
bpy.data.materials['Material'].use_transparency = True will turn on transparency for the material named ‘Material’. I’m not sure what you mean by viewing the transparency. If you mean by seeing it in the viewport go down to Display in the properties tab and turn on GLSL mode and click the box for textured solid. Then on the 3D Viewport header click the box next to the one that says which mode your in and select “textured”
I hope that helps and wasn’t too confusing.
Hello I was wondering if you could teach me how to import this stuff into FCPX for a green screen
If you render it out to an Image Sequence with RGBA and “Premultiply” enabled for the Sky you should be able to import it no problem.
-Jonathan
Hi Jonathan I can´t see the VIMEO videos, i dont know what is… but that sucks please change to utube or fixx the problem nice day!!
Hi Ric, are you able to watch the videos on Vimeo? http://vimeo.com/cgcookie
-Jonathan
Hello, I was wondering how I open up .jpg and .png images. I’m really new to this thing, and very confused on how to do these things.
Thank you.
Hi. How are you scrolling through the properties icon on the right to get to the material icon? Thanks
By Middle Click and drag or by holding ALT and scrolling with the scroll wheel
-Jonathan
I’m fairly new to Blender and your tutorials
are some of the most explanatory I’ve ever
seen for anything, so thank you.
But I use a laptop, so I don’t have a scroll wheel nor can I middle click. What do I do to scroll the properties?
You can substitute the ALT + LMB for the MMB by enabling “Emulate 3 button mouse” in the Input section of the User Preferences.
Glad you like the tutorials
Can I adjust the resolution of the final rendered image to be high resolution for printing?
Everything I do winds up in print not the web. Is this software suitable for that?
Hi Joe,
You can definitely render out for print. This is most easily done by using the Render to Print add-on that you can find here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.5/Py/Scripts/Render/Render_to_Print
Thanks. I searched and cannot find that folder. I am on an Apple, OS 10.5.8
I have had Blender for about a month now. Can you provide additional info?
hi, i was watching this video when i noticed i didnt have some of the tools that you did but i have seen them on my screen b4 now i cant find them. Do you have to like go on a certain mode or something?
What tools are you missing?
When I change the transparency the preview changes, but the actual object does not. How can I fix this? Transparency is enabled by the way. Thanks!
The object in the viewport doesn’t become transparent or translcuent but the preview object does. If you render the scene (Go to Render > Render Image or check Part 7 – Rendering), the object’s transparency will work. And don’t forget some lighting for the render. Changing the default lamp to ‘Sun’ will do. Good luck!
How do you use thetexturing brushes. I’d really appreciate if you could respond.
why cant I select face? It allows to select just the vertex and edge. Is there something I am missing?
Hi Parth, to select faces you can press CTRL + TAB while in Edit Mode to switch into Face Select Mode.
-Jonathan
Is there a way to see the textures applied to the object in the viewport? I see the texture when I render, but where do I turn on the viewport display of the texture on the object?
i cant find the small red circle which change the color of object
the bar doesn’t move!
me either… Maybe it has to do with the version?
I have—
Version 2.62 (2.62, 2012-Feb-15, Blender Foundation)
xoxo
Nvm. doh!
You hover your mouse on the left side of the toolbox so the cursor can reveal arrows. Then you pull the toolbox out to the side.
cheerio
Are there Material Libraries available to load materials ala 3DsMax. thanks
When is the blender 2.5 tutorial coming? Great job guys, this is easily one of the best software I’ve seen so far.
I am happy with these Tutorials. If you miss them than you probably give up!
Almost 15 years ago I saw Blender for the first time and tried to get control over it.
It did not work so I stopped woring with Blender. Now years later I give it a new try. In the mean time I have worked with Solidworks an 3D StudioMax and other programms. This has been already a few years ago.
Now I give it a new try with Blender again.
I see Blender more as a Creative Designing Prototyping Program. After this stage you can step over to Solidworks. But I will find out.
Thank you and regards all the way from Belgium.
Great tutorials, I’m coming from a paint.net/3d world crafter background and the blender interface is well thought out and intuitive. My only real question is trivial, but I’m curious to know: why is there a monkey option in the preview render? I’m sure there’s good reason, but it escapes me.
I am in an incandescent state of rage. Nowhere can I find how to apply textures via materials.
Hi Lo,
What specifically are you trying to apply as a texture? Image textures?
For image textures you first need to UV Unwrap the model and then add an Image Texture to the material and change the Mapping type to “UV”. If you’re not familiar with UV Unwrapping you can check my tutorial here: http://cgcookie.com/blender/2011/01/21/intro_uvmapping/
can someone help me? I just downloaded blender and for some reason it doesn’t shows me the material icon at the right, next to world and all this things, can someone help me? btw: i have the version 6.3
Maybe it doesn’t fit on your screen? Try hovering your mouse over the right edge of the 3D viewport until it turns into a arrow, then drag left to ensure there’s enough width on that right hand side toolbar.
why doesn’t my cube get transparent when i turn down Alpha? (it gets transparent on the preview)
In order to show transparency in the viewport you need to enable “Transparency” as a Draw option under the Object Properties.
I have a problem! I downloaded Blender today, and started your tutorials with no problem. Now, I cannot add a material. D: There is no button like yours, even though I did everything exactly the same, what do I do?
I found a way around the problem, and that was to uninstall the newer version of Blender (2.63) and install the older version (2.50). I don’t understand why the materials button was excluded in the newer version, but that’s okay.
I have a problem with making objects transparant. When I try to do that, only my previeuw is getting the effect I want, but nothing happens to the actual object!
Hi there,
By default the transparency will not show in the viewport; only at render time. However, you can make the transparency show by going to the Object properties and enabling “Transparent” under the Display section.
-Jonathan
Hi Johnathan, these tutorials are amazing. Went through these, did the chain link fence tutorial and now fell comfortable making my own rigs and models.
Brilliant way to learn how to use Blender. Thanks!
That’s great to hear James, I’m glad you found the tutorials helpful! I appreciate the feedback, please let me know if there’s anything you find lacking or missing!
Cheers,
Jonathan
Thank you very very much to Blender Foundation for bring us this beatiful software. I’ll try to learn a pretty much
Luis.
When I try to make it transparent it doesn’t show it on the actual shape. Is there a way to get it on the actual shape and not just the preview?
In the material preview? Unfortunately not. You can only switch between the few presets, such as cube, sphere, monkey, etc.
In that case you could do a test render of the object. First set up some lighting. Changing the default lamp to ‘Sun’ would do here (and change the energy value to about 1.2 to 1.5). To do this click the default lamp and click the ‘Sun’ tab. Then click Render > Render Image and you get a ‘preview’ of your object. You can obviously change your lighting to suit your scene.
how do i rotate the entire screen on a laptop because i dont have the middle mouse button
Enable “Emulate 3 button mouse” under User Preferences > Input. Then you can substitute ALT+LMB for the MMB.
Sorry but your microphone sucks camel balls, don’t put it so close to your mouth…
Nooooo what happened to the tutorial videos? I cant find them anywhere
Hi Justin,
We just broke something. Getting it fixed right now, sorry for the trouble. It should be fixed in a few minutes.
Okay should be fixed!
What do I do if the color wheel isn’t showing up?
Nevermind. I don’t know what happened, but it showed up.
Just click that coloured bar. Intialally its white or off-white. Then the colour wheel will show up. Then celebrate by choosing a colour maybe a your favourite colour, blue, green, red or anything you are in the mood of. Then freshen up with Fresnel and make a blend with the Blend values if you want internal transparency!
Jonothan, that was a great introductionary tutorial to as what one could do with materials. Here are a few more things regarding transparency
1a.Introducing Frensnel and Blend.
Reducing the Alpha value changes the transparency of the whole object. But what happens if we want to make part of the inside of the object transparent. We can use Fresnel and Blend. They are like twins and don’t function without each other.So if the Fresnel is ste to zero, Blend won’t do anything; if Blend was set to 1 (Which means no ‘Blend’), Fresnel has no effect.
1b. Using Fresnel and Blend
Remember Fresnel and Blend can make insides of objects transparent or translucent. By default Fresnel is set to 0 and Blend to 1.250 which creates no effect. But if you turn up the Fresnel amount to 1.5, you can see some internal transparency in the object. Turn up the Blend to 1.5. Now even more of the insides are transparent. Turning up both Fresnel and Blend will increase internal transparency. To get the desired results you need to play with both.
1c. Internal transparency, shadows, specularity and alpha.
Shadows
Internal transparency is useful in the making of cetain things, such as an atmosphere. After F and B are apply to an object it will still cast a shadow like an opaque object. To amend things, simply go to Materials and under the shadow settings click Recieve Transparent. Likewise if the object inside “the ‘F and B’ed” object is casting a shadow when you don’t want it to, click Recieve Transparent.
Specularity.
Fresnel and Blend affect specular highlights. Experiment and see!
Alpha.
Reduced alpha values create translucent objects. This can be combined with Fresnel and Blend for a different effect.Remember if Fresnel and Blend are working and the Alpha value is set to 1, there will be transparency – internal transparency. You can make an object have even a very subtle outline using Fresnel and Blend (or F and B).
Good luck using this feature!
2.Mirrior features.
Lets take up the basic features of the Materials mirrior options. First check Mirrior to enable it. Nothing seems to have happened but wait.
2a. Reflectivity.
Reflectivity states how clear the reflections are. The higher it is the more clear the reflections will be. But when you turn the value to a maximum of 1, the object can’t be seen, only reflections of other objects. This means that if the reflectivity is higher it will compromise on the diffuse! Take note of that. For a reflective looking sphere change the reflectivity to about 0.2 to 0.5 and not to 1!. For just a mirrior image on a plane, add a plane and set its reflectivity to no less than 1! So it depends on what you are making.
2b. Fresnel and Blend for reflections.
Fresnel and Blend work here in a similar way as they do in transparency except it removes internal reflections. When reflectivity is used it makes the whole object reflective. To remove internal and ‘middle’ reflections use Fresnel and Blend. The more Fresnel and Blend, the less reflectivity. Exoeriment and remeber Fresnel and Blend are dependent on each other (see my above comment).
2c. Tinted reflections and fading
Tints
You can colour reflections. Experiment with this. First add some reflectivity and then change the colour below to tint the reflections. If the colour is white, no tinting occurs. More saturation means more tinting!
Fades
Adjust the fading diatnace for fades. Ensure its not too low or too high to get a good fade. Then select material or sky. Selecting Material will cause the reflections to fade into the original material whilst sky will cause it to fade into a preset gradient. Set fade to 0 for nao fading.
2d. Transparency
Transparency affects reflectivity. It makes an object less reflective just like in real life. That is why transparent glass in backed with a sheet of highly reflective material in mirriors. I don’t know what “Depth” does here in mirrior though.
Enjoy!
A few advanced features of transparency and mirrior.
These features are not so important.
3. IOR of refraction (Transparency)
IOR stands for Index of Refraction, To enable this go to Raytrace shading and turn down the Alpha. IOR doesn’t work on opaque object because it doesn’t undergo refractions. I don’t really know what this IOR is but what I so know is that it can ge used to make ice and glass in the internal engine. Diffiuse and Specularity colours affect the colour of the specularity of an IOR’ed object in blend. The drawback is that a trnsparent’s IOR objects material it heavily depends on other objects, IOR objects or ground planes. World colours also affect it. If there is nothing but the IOR and world, the IOR won’t work (really frustrating)!
When the IOR is set to 1, nothing happens. If it is set to something but 1, something can happen to an object.
4. Blurry reflections (mirrior)
The Gloss amount determines how defined the reflections are. When it is set to a maximum of 1, the reflections are defined. The less you set that Gloss value, the more blurry will be the reflections. Blurry reflections can heavily increase render times so watch out! For a single simple mesh, it won’t do a huge increase but it will multiply render times of more complex scenes. By the way blurry reflections are usually not of any importantance in a complex scene but should you be using it be cautious. It is best to set Gloss to a value of 1. There is hardly any point if you set the Gloss to 0 or a low value because it is a waste of time. You can try it and check what is in the preview if you don;t believe me. Also if you use blurry reflections ensure the gloss value is more than 0.7.
5. More features.
There are some complex but rarely used features for transparency and reflections. I don’t know what they so but they are of hardly any importance so far or so I think.
5a. Blurry refractions and translucency
You can turn down the gloss to make blurry refractions as well as reflections. When it is set to 1, refractions are well defined. Reducing it creates blurs in it. See above comment. Reducing gloss can setup some long waits so be careful and don’t set it too low as it won’t be sensible. You need to choose Raytrace transparency for this to work.
6a. Shading.
Emit: Emit indicates how much light is the object going to emit for its self. Putting a high emit value DOES NOT make a lamp out of an object. It lights only that objects materials and textures. Emit values are useful if you want areas normally in shadow to have light or create subtle light just to see a texture applied there. By default emit is set to 0 which has no effect. Experiment by turning it up.
I really don’t know what the other two sliders do, better ask the experts.
6b. Shadeless materials.
Alright know lets investigate on ‘Shadeless.’ This option is sometimes used so its worth knowing it. A shadeless material is NOT affected by light or shadows. Try this: Put 5 lamps and a shadeless object. You’ll just see a shape depending on the camera’s view that has just the diffuse colour chosen. And if you remove all the lamps, the same thing happens. Shadeless object don’t have specularity and are not affected by light and shadows. They also don’t have any. Many other material features are disabled. The diffuse value is disabled but not its colour.
Shadeless materials are useful in some cases such as a glowing lightsaber blade, aglkowing object, a profile or a one coloured plane for instance. Check it when its helping. For instance an indoor scene, planet or and many things are affected by light. Everything in reality is affected by light and shadows. Shadeless helps to create an ‘effect’ along with compositing and that is why it is useful.
6c. Ambient usage?
Learn form tutorials.
7. Shadows
Recieving shadows.
When recieve is on, the object gets shadows from other objects. When its off it won’t recieve shaows from objects.
Transparent shadows.
You can use this to prevent shadows from transparent object parts being cast on a material.
8. Shaders
So far we have looked in depth about some of the material features. If you are to encounter something unfamiliar in a tutorial, you should be able to find out about that feature in that particular tutorial. Lets look at shaders now. Shaders give diffuse and specularity for a material. There are two kinds in the materials panel : diifuse shaders and specularity shaders. By default you have a Lambertian shader for diffuse and Cook-Torrence for specularity. These are the most commonly used shaders so we will take them up here along with the Minnaert and Oren-Nayar shader.
8a. Diffuse shaders – Lambert and Minnaert
The Lambertian, Minnaert and Oyen-Nayar shaders are the easiest to use shaders.
There are no options for the Lambert shader except for that diffuse bar which indicates how much diffuse colour is put on the material. If you set it to 0, there is just a jet black material. The best idea for a black material is to simply turn the diffuse colour to black. By default the value is 0.8, which is usually used. That is all for this shader.
The Minnaert shader is like the Lambertian excepting that it has a darkness value. This affects the darkness of the lighted part. When it is set to 1 it works like the Lambertian shader. The minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 2. As you lower the darkness, the material gets brighter and can start it recieve a ‘glow’ around the edges and as it rises dark spots are created on the material.
The Oren-Nayar shader works like the Minnaert shader excepting that it affects the overall darkness instead of parts. This way, you can darken or lighten the material but only by small amounts. Instead of a darkness slider, it has a roughness slider. The higher you set it, the darker the material. The minimum value is 0 and maximum 3.14. The default value is 0.5 and is not just like the Lambert one.
Minnaert and Oren-Nayar shaders are useful to give tingles of light or dark to materials.
Specularity shaders
The specularity shader slider affects the amount and brightness of specular highlights. This is often changed so you better know about this slider.
The Cook-Torrence shader has a roughness value which alters the definition and sharpness of specular highlights. More means sharper, less means more blurr. The Phong shader works like this too.
9. Traceable
This option is found under ‘Options.’ By default this is on which means that shadows and reflections and all are Raytraced calculated. So if you don’t have any advanced features on a particular material, uncheck Traceable to reduce render times. Good luck.
Jonathan, I suggest that you make a tutorial on textures as well.
These are amazing tutorials! I haven’t seen a better one even for another program. Thank you so much! You should look into doing tutorials for other programs, as well; you have a fantastic way of teaching and explaining. Thank you!
I can not see the preview window or any of the other options like specular, shading, diffuse, transparency, or shading. How can I make these available to me?
You may be in cycles mode, switch to blender internal (at the top of the program window) to bring these back.
-Alex
I also can’t see a preview, diffuse, etc on the materials pane. I’ve checked all modes at the top (blender render, blender game, cycles render) and none of these change the look of the materials pane. Is this something I need to download??