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Blender Texture Tutorial

This tutorial shows how to create a brick texture using Blender's node-based texture system. It begins by adding a plane and material, then switching to the node editor. A brick texture node is added and used to create diffuse, bump, pattern, and specular map outputs. Additional nodes like clouds and musgrave are used to add variation to the pattern and specular maps. The node system is then connected to the material's texture slots to apply the various maps and achieve a textured brick material.

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Drako Sparrow
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777 views

Blender Texture Tutorial

This tutorial shows how to create a brick texture using Blender's node-based texture system. It begins by adding a plane and material, then switching to the node editor. A brick texture node is added and used to create diffuse, bump, pattern, and specular map outputs. Additional nodes like clouds and musgrave are used to add variation to the pattern and specular maps. The node system is then connected to the material's texture slots to apply the various maps and achieve a textured brick material.

Uploaded by

Drako Sparrow
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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n this tutorial we will be creating a brick texture using nothing but procedural

textures and Blenders powerful new texture node system.

Lets begin
Start by adding a plane and rotating it to face the camera.
With the plane selected, add a new material and new texture. Those familar with
blender will recognize that a new button labelled Nodes has been added. Click it.
You will notice that doing so, disables the standard dropdown texture choices.
Now switch to the Node editor.
Again, you will notice a new button has been added to the header, in the shape
of a spotted square. Click it to switch to the Texturing Node system.
By default you will see a checkboard and output nodes. Go ahead and delete the
checkerboard node.

Creating the brick mask


Add a brick texture by hitting space then selecting, Add>Patterns>Bricks.
Change the settings to the picture below and connect it to the Output node.
This basic brick texture will be used as the foundation to create our diffuse,
bump, pattern and spec maps, so we want to make sure that if we change any of
the settings, that all 4 textures update accordingly. So to do this, we need to
create a group.
With only the Brick node selected hit Ctrl+G, and click Make Group. To make it
easier to identify later, label it Mask:
The new node system allows us to add multiple outputs to the same node screen
for each texture map that we need. In this case we are creating 4, so with the

Mask and the Output nodes selected, duplicate it three times and label the
outputs: Diffuse, Pattern, Spec and Bump.
Thats the basic brick mask set up. We will now move on to texturing each map
accordingly.
Altering the Pattern Texture
Create two cloud inputs (Add>Textures>Clouds) and give them the following
settings:
These cloud layers will be used to give the bricks a randomized texture pattern
depending on the row and number of the brick. To do this, join each cloud layer
to the brick inputs in the mask that is connected to the Pattern output:
The Bias setting can be adjusted from -1.00 to 1.00. This determines how much
of Brick 1 and Brick 2 to use. Setting it to 0.00 will use both Brick 1 and Brick 2
evenly, creating a nice random brick texture, which is ideal for what we want.
Altering the Specular Texture
Just like we did with our pattern texture, we are going to be adding a texture that
will reflect the light off our bricks. So in this instance the Musgrave texture works
best (Add>Texture>Musgrave). Give the Musgrave texture the following settings
(making sure you change the colors as shown) then insert it into the Brick 1 slot.
Now change the colour of Brick 2 to black:
This will create a fine sandy texture that will reflect off the light.
Altering the Bump Map Texture
The bump is slightly different in that we arent altering brick slot 1 or 2, but
instead converting the resulting texture to a normal map. To do this, add a Value
to Normal node (Add>Convertor>Value to Normal) and place it in between the
mask and the output as shown. Make sure that you change the connection on
the output from Color to Normal.
This will ensure our bricks have nice bevelled edges.

The node system is now complete!

Adding the Node System to the Texture Panel


If you switch to the texture panel in our material settings, you will notice that our
texture now has a dropdown list next to it, listing each of our outputs. This allows
us to bring the textures from node system into our standard texture panel and
change the blending options.
To start with select Diffuse from the drop down list.
Now swith to the Map To panel and make the following changes.
Going back to our Texture Panel, add another texture slot and change the output
to Spec:
Switch to the Map To panel and make the following changes:
Add another texture slot and select Bump for the output:
Now make the following changes in the Map To panel:
Add a final texture slot and select Pattern as the output:
Switch to the Map To tab and make the following changes:
Thats it! If you render now, you should get a result similar to this:
I used the default brick size for this tutorial which is quite large. If you want to
decrease their size, this can easily be done by altering the size of the texture in
the Map Input field.
For example, altering those numbers to 3.00 yields this result:

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