Hey people!!

I have been working hard today on this piece of toast and although I am happy with the texture of the flat surface, it can still use some adjusting (as you can see). I also still need to work on the coloring of the bread and the toast itself. I've noticed that brown bread is somewhat grey-ish and the toasted parts are almost a chocolate brown leaning into orange. Quite a stark contrast that I don't want people looking at going: "did he even use reference?!". The answer would be yes, yes I did and it was delicious too (^^,)! LOL.

Anywho, here is where it's at right now:

As you can see I've added some lights, a plate, block table and a small environment for it all to function in.

HE has helped me tremendously with this piece of toast and I will tell you how: by guiding me to think within the realm of the nodes I have, aka make due and show what the textures are capable of.

Many things differ between Cycles and Blender Render and the biggest is the way you texture and layer. In Blender Render's node textures, you have exceptional flexibility through the Distort Nodes category. Cycles doesn't have that and on top of that, it does not give you node textures either (or yet, I'm hoping it's only a yet, lol). You don't even have control over your specularity in such a straightforward way anymore. So today's tip is this:
For now forget almost everything you learned with Blender Render when using Cycles; very little of it is useful information when it comes to procedural textures.

I'm not throwing Cycles out by any means. I think it is a fantastic engine, especially for it's age. I enjoy using it and I enjoy learning about it. My fav part of it remains the Rendered view in 3DView. Go play around with Cycles and have fun with it!

Have great one everyone!!

Thank YOU!!!!!