Introduction to Texturing with Cycles in Blender

by Jonathan Williamson
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Cycles, Rendering, Texturing and UV Unwrapping

Hello and welcome to this introductory tutorial on texturing with Cycles in Blender!

In this Blender tutorial Jonathan Williamson gives you an introduction on setting up your material shaders with textures for Cycles in Blender.

blender_intro_texturing_image

What you’ll learn:

Through this tutorial you should gain a solid understanding texturing with Cycles in Blender, including how to take existing texture maps (diffuse, spec, bump) and use them in material shaders to create the various surfaces you require for your project. You will learn how to set up the textures through both the Material Properties and the Node Editor while being shown distinct advantages of each method.

Along with texture map setups, you will also learn how to set up and HDRI environment texture for the lighting and how to use node groups for easy reuse of existing node setups.

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Discussion

120 Responses to “Introduction to Texturing with Cycles in Blender”
  1. Posts: 2
    jay says:

    Can you tell me what GPU you used for this tutorial? I’m shopping for a new computer and I’d like to find out the best gfx board for the money (to run Blender) – do you have any recommendations?

    • Posts: 3070
      Jonathan Williamson says:

      Hi jay, I was using a GTX 580. It’s a great card and I highly recommend it! Personally I would go for an EVGA branded one.

      • Posts: 2
        jay says:

        Hi Jonathan,

        Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned that I’m looking for a mobile card. Do you have any hands on experience with either the GTX680M or the GTX675MX? Do you know which GPU feature contributes most to Cycles performance, i.e., CUDA cores, clock, etc.?

        Thanks again for the reply!!

        j.

    • Posts: 1
      Ryan Ward says:

      I have this exact same problem, and I literally have no idea how to solve it. :( Any help would be greatly appreciated!

      • Posts: 5
        Andy Garden says:

        Hi Ryan,
        I am thinking you should check to see how you did your UV unwrap.
        If you choose the first option at the top of the list which simply says “unwrap” it will cause the image to repeat over and over on the sphere.
        Try to unwrap again and use “smart UV project”.
        This should spread your texture image out over the sphere.
        Hope this helps until you get a better answer!

  3. Posts: 5
    Michael Robles says:

    Hi Jonathan,
    Thanks for all the great tutorials.
    Are you still using the GTX 580 GPU? I hear that the newer GTX 600 series are not as good. Do you have any experience with newer GPU’s?
    Thanks.

    • Posts: 17
      dolores 74 says:

      This tutorial has taken away the ‘big’ from the mystery. It still is a mystery to me but not that big anymore. It’s getting better all the time. You do talk fast Jonathan, English is not my mother tongue. But that’s the benefit of a video, I can rewind as many times as I want.

      That .hdr file you mention briefly ? That’s a study on its own. Bought a 79,4 MB .hdr file but something can’t handle it, Blender stops working. Maybe my graphic card needs more ram. So I had to cut back to the 656 kB free version of it and then it works but then again, only in CPU render mode.

      You can clearly see the effect of the specular map on the left wing. Without the specular map the letters shine too much. Also, all those tiny black lines. Without the specular map the fine line around the cockpit, as well as the others are almost not visible, they are light grey. Everything that is a line, a sign or a letter is black, the rest is white in the specular map. Plugged that map into the color slot of the glossy BDSF. Could’ve plugged it also into the displacement slot of the output node to make it a bump map but that was way over it. I think those tiny details must be subtle.

      The cockpit I learned from Kent. I found one of his tutorials with a wine glass. You can see a bit the two guns in it. The camera I haven’t modeled yet. Should be in there.

      Making the UVMap I applied the subsurf and I lost the shape keys. I cannot extrude it’s wings to glider modus anymore and I have to start all over again. But that’s a problem when it comes to animation. BTW Jonathan, that piston rig tutorial is outdated, can we have a newer one ? The parts of my landing gear are facing all directions. That tutorial is still in my drawer.

      This is the best I can come up with for now. I love that shiny look and a dark blue sky, I discovered the RGB Curves node to make the original background image a bit darker blue. The background is a plane with a google image, the .hdr is the world. The .hdr I bought is black below the horizon and I couldn’t angle it away with the camera therefore the background image. The first two pictures are made after this tutorial. You can clearly see the Jonathan effect, before and after . In the second image, the top view, you can see the reflection of the .hdr, especially on top of the cockpit. There I have a problem, the sun in the .hdr comes from a different direction then the sun in the background image.

      You have to scroll down at the bottom of the page. I did that deliberately for someone to read it. You can click on the images to have a bigger version.

      http://www.satis-tempus.be/road.htm

      Must watch more tutorials.

  5. Posts: 1
    Lathou Xaris says:

    Hi Jonathan,

    Just a quick question, for some reason, changes I make to the UV mapping do not show up in render preview, e.g when trying to put a mapping node in, or manually altering the UV map. Any suggestions?

    Thanks.

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