Hey all!

This has been a challenge for quite a few years now - creating good looking wood with procedural textures. Only these last two months have I really been given the results I wanted. Below are a few exampls on how this has progressed:


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Hey all!

The last post I did was on the other blog - about cast approx in the material options. Check it out!

Today I want to share with you something of an experiment for me - writing sound effects as well as music!
This is a fairly recent video I did for Cross Allegiance:


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Hey all!

Quick Blog Tutorial time again!

Recently, I saw someone having done their own brick texture and immediately I was wowed, because they did not use the typical brick texture, except maybe to color, but, the bricks were nicely rounded and so, yesterday, GOD challenged me to make one for the verse image below, showing a before and after of compositing for a post on the portfolio blog:


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Hey all!

Been editing the book (yes, it is that far along, can you believe it?!) and along the way I've encountered some really strange paragraphs, lol. This morning was almost like an entire section. In the Ruin tutorial, I explain how to make cracks and how to add them to the ruin and I was reading this section and going "wha'?!", hahaha. Anyway, I thought let me just open Blender and work this section through and see what I get and I really liked the result, so I thought I'd play with it a ...
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Hey all!

This post is sort of linked to the first in terms of what you can do with procedural textures (quite a bit to say the least). This one, is about a touch of realism mixed with formalism (in the sense of adhering to recognizable forms, not expression through form). Here is what I mean in English: the picture depicts something real that does exist, so it is recognizable, yet it is not photo-realistic, but more stylistic.

In this case, the moon:

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Hey all!

I've been working on another part of the book this morning and made this as a demo:

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Hey all!

Today I was working on the trees and got bored and so I made these instead by just messing around with the textures. Think they came out rather cool! I stuck with the circular theme, because it looked amazing. The top middle one was made first.


In the book, I will tell you how you can make this kind of thing with procedural textures, because many times you need an art piece for a scene (especially when doing architecture) and as a respecter of copyright, you won't just fling something ...
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Hey all!

Today's post is more a taste of the final (though merely, if even, a shadow):


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Hey all!

What a mission! It was such a task to get this size of ivy in the scene. The generator works extremely well and it has nothing to do with the quality of the software. Blender rocks and the ivy generator too, but I was referring to getting it to render (Cycles is a bit more heavy duty than Blender Render, imo).

BUT! HE came through as usual and I added HIS suggestions to the book as well on how to get it going with a good look and proper detail.

For today's post, I made a clay render (fo...
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Hey all!

Can finally move on to something other than bricks, haha, sort of:


This is where I am leaving it alone from this point and moving on to the blocks' insides themselves, because as you can see, they are still as white as the day they were modeled, if not more so, hahaha.

Let's recap on how this went on (remember, all procedural textures, not even texture painting):

This was the firstly applying the bricks. It was a scale test before unwrapping the whole thing and separating the two section...
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Hey all!

I took some time today to specifically look at some buildings and I saw that when there is a place that water flows down regularly, where it hits the ground or drips for a long time, there forms stains too, so I added some staining on the floor as part of the floor's aging, but I ran into some difficulties, because I wanted to do it my way, instead of listening to HIS way, but thankfully, it didn't take nearly as long as before for me to relent and do it HIS way.

This is the result of ...
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Hey all!

This is all for today, because I had some other work and it took a while to write and explain how to do it, but I am still very jazzed with the final result, so here is the old one and the new one:


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Heya!

Been working on a basic mask for the floor. This shows how it is progressing, from a top view (which you need to use while doing this, otherwise you don't have a clue as to what is where):


Basically, you can use gradient textures to make basic masks and I really do recommend them. I will also add though, that you will face some difficulty when it comes to coloring or boosting the brightness of the mask, without ruining it completely. I recommend adding a Brightness/Contrast one to make th...
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Heya everybody!

Been working on the tutorial and, oh snap, is it taking a while, hahaha. Personally, I've learned a ton during the writing of the book and people's reaction to it when I show them what it's about and what they would be able to do with it is really a confirmation that this is truly an anointed (means favored and chosen by GOD) project. Thank you for all the support!

Today's work followed on the tip from yesterday, which is grouping everything into node groups making the whole set...
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Hey all!

I have been working hard today, trying to figure out how to make an ivy leaf without a distort category in in Cycles's node system and oh snap was it hard!! HE helped me make two different shapes. One that looks more like a heart and the other that looks more like a weirdly shaped helmet. I think both shapes will look great for the Ivy Generator.

After finishing the shapes, I like looking at the surprise HE leaves in the node system. HE usually leaves some kind of image there to discov...
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Hey all!

In the node editor, you will find that when you have something like a Mix node, that there is a Factor input. This input can be altered in varying ways, by using a texture. But, every texture has both a Color and a Factor output, both of which have an effect on the Factor of that Mix node or other node having a Factor input.

The big thing here is to remember that the Factor and Color output is not always the same and can produce very different results:


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Hey all!

Didn't get any requests for this one, but I believe HE wants it shared. So, here it is. I had to modify it a bit, because the single mountain landscape, just didn't cut it. I added a few more and some mist as well as a few other things, but I really wanted to add as much photographic qualities as I possibly could to just give it that bit of a boost, including a vignette (it is that bright spot in the middle of most photos). Because this is a very bright scene, the appearance thereof w...
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Hey all!

Very excited about sharing this particular image. While working on the first part of the book, HE showed me how to add snow, using only the Blend texture. And that is also a tutorial in the first section.

Anyway, on Cycles it is now called the Gradient texture and I wondered if it would still respond similarly or possibly even better. While I wouldn't necessarily call it better, I definitely like the almost stylistic cartoony background approach to how this looks.

Hope you like it too:


T...
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Heya!

Finished the toast today. What a work-out with Cycles!
Here is the final toast:

I have to say, I really enjoyed this project and I have learned quite a bit on Cycles. Particularly how to layer procedural textures. It was a blast. For the toasted color I think it is too black, but I tried getting it lighter (didn't wanna budge). Oh well. Would still look good as a prop for a scene's background, so in that sense I believe it ...
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Hey peoples!

I have been working hard this morning fixing some things, shrinking others and having quite a bit to do, lol.

Specifically, I can't disclose it yet (want it to be surprise), but I can tell you that there are at least still two pages to finish and add, bringing the total amount of pages to a round 150 for the Blender Render section (if I don't find more to add of course), but I have started working with Cycles again so I can do it justice for all of you.

I also made sure that I can r...
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Hey all!

I got the chance to work on the book again Saturday. This time on the flag tutorial and I am very very excited about the results so far!

I am still working on animation, but for static images the tutorial is about a page from finished. I want to include animation as this tutorial will then truly set the tutorial apart in proving that you can do a lot with procedural textures.

So far the tutorial covers how to use them with certain modifiers:
 - Subdivision Surface (making the displacemen...
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Hey peoples!!

Thankfully I had the opportunity to work on the book again this week and managed to finish writing it and finishing the cover as well. It still needs to be checked and maybe more info added, but it's one tutorial away from the Blender Render section being completed!!! As with the other tutorials having a similar cover, this is completely procedural textures (using nodes and directly applied).

So without further ado, here is the cover of the wood tutorial:

It took quite a bit of wor...
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My brother needed a personal logo for his group on FB.

I usually like to do the designing, but prefer it if the person actually gives me a sketch of what they want me to do and then just transform that into a final product. And that's what we have here.

My brother has very specific ideas about what he wants and so with such clients is essential that they give a proper example of what they want, and that way they can very easily be satisfied with the work.

In this case, he only requested that the...
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Wood is one of the most difficult textures I've had to try and make with only procedural textures, but I'm glad to announce there's a way to add knots to wood with grain distortion.

Though I only managed it yesterday (with a lot of grace), it looks cool so far and the actual tutorial should (prayerfully and hopefully) have a better result. The node system looks something like this:


This the result of above:

I have a few things I would like to change, suc...
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This is one of Blender's coolest feature imo. You can literally paint over objects in 3DView. So cool. Not overtly original or even that fancy, just the knowing you can is cool!

For this part of the book (now becoming a set of books, due to my PC's inability to handle the large file), I used the monkey mesh that comes with Blender. Very simple low res texture, but it definitely shows that you can achieve good results with this technique.

Here's the final:

I really had to up the contrast and brig...
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Heya!

You've heard me talk about how useful procedural textures are and how great I think they are and about the new book I'm working on, explaining how to use them well, etc., BUT, I was as yet to show you how useful they truly are. Well, today I get to show you. This orange was modeled and textured (with procedural textures only), in Blender.


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Heya everyone!!

I have started working on the Texture Nodes for Procedural Textures (quite a mouth full, lol). Anyway, just to show you what you can do, I made something that you can't do without using texture nodes (when using procedural textures). An old dingy wall with plaster and paint chipping off and the wall itself is cracked.

This is it:

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Heya peoples!!

Great news! I just finished a new free tutorial on Procedural Textures in Blender:
Procedural Textures - An Introduction

It features details on the cloud procedural texture as well as two tutorials on how you can apply them to create things you'd normally need to buy textures for or find online. This way, you can get smart, make your own and stand out. This is the cover:
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