Good shader explanation

Anyone know of a good tutorial or set of tutorials or something that explains the nodes in better detail than the blender wiki? The wiki is really bare bones in its explanations of anything. It would be nice if they offered a set of images where each shader was used as it was intended to its best effect.

I was planning on updating the wiki with some new images - but the process is a bit contrived so I haven’t done it yet. Here they are - these may help you. All parameters are as default except the named parameter values:

Glass Roughness 0, 0.025, 0.1, 0.25


Glass IOR 1, 1.1, 1.5, 2.5


Glossy Roughness 0, 0.025, 0.1, 0.25


Aniostropic Anisotropy 0, 0.25, 0.75, 1


Anisotropic Roughness 0, 0.025, 0.1, 0.25


Anisotropic Rotation 0, 0.05, 0.15, 0.25


Emission Strength 0.1, 0.5, 1, 5


Diffuse Roughness 0, 0.1, 0.5, 1


Mix (1 red and 1 diffuse node) Fac 0, 0.25, 0.75, 1


Mix (1 red and 1 diffuse node) + Fac (Fresnel IOR) 1, 1.5, 2, 3


Mix (1 red diffuse and 1 blue diffuse node) + Fac (Layer Weight Fresnel) 0, 0.25, 0.75, 1


Mix (1 red diffuse and 1 blue diffuse node) + Fac (Layer Weight Facing) 0, 0.25, 0.75, 1


Velvet Sigma 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1


SSS Scale 0, 0.5, 1, 5


SSS RGB (red) 0.8, 0.6, 0.4, 0.2


HDR Environment Lighting (Multiple Importance OFF)


HDR Environment Lighting (Multiple Importance ON)


do you have sample file for these test
very nice indeed and should be added to wiki with sample file if possible

i did some sample test like that for layerweight - fresnel

it should be added to wiki to help everyone to help better understand cycles nodes

also some tests like that for mapping and new vector transform nodes would be usefull!

nice work here

thanks

Wow! Thanks, moony! :smiley:

A few more:

Toon(Diffuse) Size 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1


Toon(Diffuse) Smooth 0, 0.1, 0.5, 1


Toon(Glossy) Size 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1


Toon(Glossy) Smooth


Glass RGB 1, 0.8, 0.6, 0.4


Glossy RGB 1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.1


Transparent RGB 1, 0.8, 0.4, 0


Refraction IOR 1, 1.1, 1.5, 2.5


Background, Translucent, Ambient Occlusion, Holdout (These either dont have parameters or have special uses - they are given just for completeness)


These two images show the difference between the Mix and Add shaders

Mix (diffuse/diffuse, diffuse/glossy, emission/glossy, glass/translucent)


Add (diffuse/diffuse, diffuse/glossy, emission/glossy, glass/translucent)


Hey Mooney… these posts are very nice and helpful, thanks for taking the time to do them. I’ll be sure to bookmark this page

I really hope these make it to the wiki, they are very helpful - thank you moony!!!

WOW! I was not expecting such a clear answer. Thanks. This is much better than the wiki.

Emission (using Wavelength Node to control colour) 450, 480, 510, 540


570, 600, 630, 660


Emission (using Black Body node to control colour - v2.69 onwards) 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000


5000, 6000, 7000, 8000


9000, 10,000, 11,000, 12,000


Noise Texture Distortion 0, 1, 10, 50


Noise Texture Scale 5, 10, 20, 40


Noise Texture Detail 0, 4, 8, 16


Mods, please sticky this thread!!!