Ok I am quite a noob to 3D. I have been playing with Blender for 3 days now and I must say again WOW! I have Maya PLE as well and I must say I preffer Blenders workflow approach already ( Although I am still getting use to it - Its very different than Maya for example ) and I am loving it.
Saying that, with Maya it is relatively easy to come up with any type of shaders, different materials and textures . I am struggling with this in Blender, giving that I only have 3 days experience with it, it might be something I’m not seeing or know about but it feels like Blenders shading etc, are waaaay inferior ( I have been continually told this by a colleuge that knows their stuff with Maya as well. He comes up with shaders and awesome looking materials in Maya in a couple of minutes). PLEASE DONT FLAME ME
I hope you guys can prove him / me wrong and point me in the right dirrection to some good tutorials etc, that can show me how to make custom shadres/ materials and save them etc.
Also, does Blender have similar shaders etc that people can download or something like Maya has ( their .Ma files )
EDIT: I just saw some work posted by Blender people here and again WOW. So now I know its defnitly possible! Show me how!!
I think the ability to make great shaders depends more on the artist than the tool. You’re saying you’re new to 3D yourself, so it might be better to study general theories. Leigh’s tutorials make a great start
Frankly, your colleague is right. You can’t make many things in Blender at least not in a “natural” way. On the other hand these unnatural workarounds tend to render fast… Also, check YafRay. New version has some useful additions to shading.
I think the ability to make great shaders depends more on the artist than the tool. You’re saying you’re new to 3D yourself, so it might be better to study general theories. Leigh’s tutorials make a great start
What immediately comes to mind…
1)Anisotropy: (V-shaped specular effect you see on roughly lathed metal or CD, specular of hair is anisotropic too) There are tricks to approx this, there is beta of that in new YafRay but it all is not straightforward.
2)SSS (subsurface scatter). But then, again, full SSS is expensive, so it is often approximated with lights and textures even if supported by renderer.
3)(not that important) Fresnel effect applied not only to reflections, but to diffuse and specular shaders.
4)Photoreal fur. You can do pretty good one with particles, but hiend app like Maya Unlimited does it better.
And don’t forget theres some clever stuff can be done with the ramp shaders, including fx like the paint on cars that changes colour depending on were you look from (?)
You can’t make many things in Blender at least not in a “natural” way. On the other hand these unnatural workarounds tend to render fast… Also, check YafRay. New version has some useful additions to shading.
I’m just puzzled at the work proccess in doing this in Blender as uppose to maya 
