I’ve been using blender for a while now and I’m more and more starting to get a grip on texturing although I have never really understood what the vector input/output actually is, how it works and what i can do with it.
So far the only time I have used it is to make sure an image texture appears on the mesh with the texture coordinates (uv/generated) output and the mapping node.
I know vectors have something to do with how and where a texture is applied onto a mesh.
But can anyone clarify for me what the vector input/output fundamentally is, and how I could use it.
Which vector node do you mean? As you already figured out, the vector input/output controls how the textures get displayed. Vectors set the location, rotation and scale of textures, but can also contain surface information (i. e. as normalmaps) for more realistic shadow/light behaviour of materials as well as some more specific functions like object location, camera direction,…
The vector input/ouptut is fundamentally a mathematical repesentation of space which contains information about how this space gets deformed/ is located. It has also to do with the vector-arrows we’ve seen in school
For information about the different vector nodes see the official documentation: [https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/nodes/types/vector/index.html#vector-nodes](http://Which vector node do you mean? As you already figured out, the vector input/output controls how the textures get displayed. Vectors set the location, rotation and scale of textures, but can also contain surface information (normalmaps, ) for more realistic shadow/light behaviour of materials as well as some more specific functions like object location, camera direction,…For information about the different vector nodes see the official documentation: [url) hope that is what you asked for…"]https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/nodes/types/vector/index.html#vector-nodes
hope that is what you asked for…
Thanks for your reply.
I’m sorry, I somewhat misformulated my title. I am not looking for a specific vector node but I wanted to know what the input ouput does.
You’re explaination made it a lot clearer. thanks
Do you happen to know any good toturials that cover the use of the vector input/output in depth?
As LukeV1 pointed out, vectors are just some ‘arrows’ in a 3D coordinate space. Their output/input are vectors (if the socket is a vector socket), which are composed of three values for each X, Y, Z axis in the reference system.
Vectors serve a variety of purposes. They can be used to point some location in some coordinate system; determine some direction and have some magnitude, which can also be used for transforming other vectors; etc.
The best place to know in depth how to use vectors will be in math books. Knowing what happens when you add two vectors, or when you multiply some number and a vector, what results from the Dot and the Cross products, how to rotate vectors, what are the particularities of normalized vectors, etc; it will make using vectors in the node editor very simple and straigthforward.
Any other piece of information will be the reference spaces used in 3D (Position, Object, Generated, UV, etc). You can look the blender’s manual, or even other 3d software’s documentation as most of the nomenculature is the same. Bartek Skorupa did a nice job digging this thema in the BC2014.
Anyone know of a tutorial that explains how to use that vector space transform (?) node? I’m at a complete loss when trying to use it and anticipate its outcome.
I second LukeV1 - which vector node exactly are you referring to?
Sure you will! Profs love vectors because they can be used to calculate nearly everything in veeeery complex ways
A little tip to understand vector outputs: you may just connect any vector output you find to a simple diffuse shader and see how it looks - sometimes you will get something interesting that may help for material creation. Additionally use the “Seperate XYZ”-Node, because this basically splits the three vector axes secrop mentioned in seperate values and makes them a lot more useful.
Using this, you can i. e. destinguish the height of your object’s geometry to change textures correspondingly. This may be helpful for creating - for example - an universal “terrain-material” that applies the textures based on the height of the geometry. I used this recently for a beach to change the textures at the sea level (under water / above water):
but comming year I’ll be going to university so I hope than I’ll learn about vectors :).
