Wouldn't it be an idea to open a pinned thread in which users could suggest things/ topics they would like to learn more about? There propably would be a huge variety of ideas and a course takes some time but it might be helpful for instructors to see if a large amount of users want to learn more about a specific topic. I for example would love to learn more about creating game assets (similar to the weapon course) or how to build an atual scene full of assets. Also a course on how to create an interior visualization and use textures and lighting to make it look as photorealistic as possible (similar to the architectual visualization course) would be awesome.
Just an idea on how the website could be improved.
I would like to study a Creation of environment in blender and unity.
sheila5 I can definitely take a look at updating it. Been wanting to get back into VR but it hasn't been as popular as we had hoped, here on CGCookie anyways. I would like to have a small game project in VR, so maybe I can use that as an opportunity to update the core fundamentals of VR along with it. Thanks for letting us know!
korneisgibnev098 Funny you mention that as I had recently gone through Kent's Sand Dunes tutorial: https://cgcookie.com/course/creating-procedural-sand-dunes-with-blender-2-8 and had some ideas on how to convert it for use in Unity. I'd be using Unity's new terrain system but essentially replicating it for use in a real time game environment. If you have anything specific in mind let us know. Environments are requested from time to time so we could definitely do something with that.
@theluthier I would like to see a tutorial or a short course on how to procedurally generate normal maps with Eevee. I've seen on twitter that it's possible and I would like to learn how, that would be awesome!! since we can't use the bump node anymore... :(
ssmurfmier1985 I'd like to learn that as well! The limitation with bump maps is disappointing to say the least. I think I know the guy who can figure this out for us.
tbrbn You think you can figure out how to procedural convert black and white bump data into normal data for Eevee?
@theluthier Challenge considered ! I'll take a closer look to it and see if I can come up with some magic spell to do that :D
ssmurfmier1985 You can always nip over to Cycles, bake normal (which will capture the details of any bump map you have applied) and then use that normal map in EEVEE..
I make a baking related add-on and one of my customers was telling me how he did this. I just tried it myself and it does seem like it works.
EDIT: I relasie I might not have been clear here. You don't need an addon to do this. I'm talking here about blender's plain old vanilla bake function.
sstatus451_cg I know, but I do not always want to bake normals... I love creating fine detail procedurally so I would like that ability with Eevee too. Thanks for your suggestion though 😊
ssmurfmier1985 Yeah, I got that. What I am saying is you can create that detail procedurally in the normal way (using a bump map), and just bake the bump to a normal map when you are happy with it. Then use the normal map in EEVEE without the pixelation issue.
But anyway, whatever works for you.
ssmurfmier1985 Hey Miranda, I gave it a look and I some info on that topic:
For procedural masks, Joakim Thornill (Blender Insight guy, he's pretty skilled with procedural texturing) released a tutorial last month on how to generate procedural normal map. It's not exactly an actual normal map that is generated but it's a quite smart workaround: you need to duplicate twice your bump mask and shift it a bit along the x and a bit along the y and then use these shifted texture as input for an RGB combine node, with a constant B. It's far from perfect, you need to use UV unwrapping only and I find some limitations when looking at the object under some angles (back to my comment on the not-so-much-a-normal-map).
For imported images there's the possibility to write a python method that basically calculate for each pixel of the image how much it differs from its neighbors and generate different type of maps (based on the type of pixel difference you're after). It's much more accurate and also possible to implement it in a (very) complex nodes setup like Tim Crellin does on his Super Texture addon. I got curious and will dig there some days :) But I have no idea (yet!) how to implement this for procedural masks.
So be patient ! Hopefully the blender developpers will solve it!
sstatus451_cg ooohhh gotcha! That's pretty smart actually 😃 You will need to preview in Cycles too to actually see what you're doing (hope that doesn't slow down my laptop too much because it usually doesn't like Cycles), because Eevee won't show it, but I will try it out. Thanks! 😊
tbrbn that's the addon that caught my interest on twitter! Looks great the results it has.
I have a bit of doubt the developers will 'fix' this issue with bump though, since Eevee is essentially a realtime game renderer, and those always work with normal maps.. but maybe if enough people want it, you never know 😉
Thanks for looking into it and the link to the workaround, I will watch it and see if it's a method I like. Though I will also try the suggestion by sstatus451_cg with baking bump info from cycles into a normal map, that also seems like a good workaround.
ssmurfmier1985 well... you don't necessarily need to preview in Cycles. From my own experiments the pixelation problem in EEVEE isn't SO bad that you can't see the bump at all, (right?) it just looks a little ugly.
Unless you have had a different experience?
I would create the bump in EEVEE and ignore the pixelation. Once you are happy with it, nip over to cycles and bake in a normal map. Then head back to EEVEE and use that normal map. Should be same result as your original bump but renderer nice and smooth.
ssmurfmier1985 Fair enough. Then yeah, you would have to preview in Cycles to create what you want.
I know it would take ages but I would love to see a high poly car tutorial (Lamborgini Aventador etc.) I can't find any free good tutorials because of the time and difficulty obviously so one here would be nice. Also a environment/nature render would be cool :)
ssneekycockatiel234 if you want to scratch your itch right away, you could consider buying the master car creation course by CG Masters from the Blender Market. They even have 25% off this week 😊
I'm sure this has probably been suggested before (it's a loooooooong thread by now!), but I would like to see a detailed course about highly realistic skin. I'm talking like combining hand-painted color maps with procedural surface bump, along with SSS and a surface reflection layer - the whole nine yards.
These days, there's a lot of videos that claim to teach how to make realistic skin, which ends up only slightly better looking than wax (i.e., not tremendously that realistic, honestly). I have seen examples of nearly photorealistic skin made from scratch in Blender before, but it seems like achieving such ultra-realistic results is within the reach of a few select wizards of the software. It shouldn't be!
