Blender Cycles: Materials and Textures Cookbook

When I first got the book, I was a bit disappointed. I wasn't looking for a step by step guide to creating materials. Rather, I was looking for a better understanding of the various nodes and how to put them together.But as I think about it's intended audience, I think this book does a marvelous job. It's a great introductory book on creating materials in Blender using Cycles. As the author admits towards the end, there are some better "recipes" out there, but for someone getting started, this book will get them a long way.Some of the materials I thought turned out really great,but there were a couple, particularly in the middle of the book, where some slight tweaking, especially in the strength of the bump, could have improved them. And some of the ones that involved images I would have liked to have seen how they were generated.All in all, I feel I picked up a trick or two that I plan to use in my future projects. If you're comfortable creating procedural textures in Cycles, then this book might not be for you (though it might be worth the read if you want to see a different approach to what you may have learned). But if you're just getting started using Cycles, then this book is definitely a good one to start with.

This is a good cookbook for cycles materials, but the screen captures are terrible - grey text on a grey background and text so small it is illegible. With over 300 captures, which probably represent 50% of the book, the only legible content is the white of the color wheel or color select boxes. Luckily, there are online blend files corresponding to the book's projects.I would have also liked more information on what each option does and how it affects the final output. Following 30 steps and 'ta-da' is not rewarding and doesn't further my knowledge of cycles...

While the book is loaded with great information it is also loaded with errors in the text; stupid little mistakes that are incredibly frustrating. While it's apparent that the author knows Blender inside-out, he doesn't communicate it very well and the need for competent editing is glaringly clear. That being said, I would definitely recommend this book for experienced Blender users, but I'm afraid that newcomers will get through the first few pages of the first chapter and throw the book away in disgust.

Nodes are a hard thing to jump into, and even though this isn't a complete overview, it does cover just about everything you'd want to do procedurally.

This book may be full of wisdom but I found it rather useless: its screenshots are of so poor quality I had to look for another book. The focus of this book is materials, and those are defined via node diagrams. There are many node diagrams in this book but the print quality is so bad you really need to strain your eyes to make things out. I gave up in less than an hour.

Not only does this book show you step by step through a gradual approach, it also explains whats happening along the way!

In depth for Cycles!!

many revised editions of books offer just minor improvements but this book offers much, much more. Expanded to just under 400 pages it covers everything about Cycles in a clear and extremely detailed manner.The author clearly knows what he is talking about and explains in a structured manner how Cycles works, how to set up node based materials and to design materials from the bottom up. That last part is crucial: in order to create a material that is believable or even photorealistic a lot of detail is needed. The best way to get results is to design from the bottom up and add layers of detail step by step and in this book this is illustrated in minute detail.Another great addition to this edition is attention for special effects: features like fog, fire, global illumination or shadeless materials. Cycles is quite capable to create those effects but these are not always easy to configure. The new sections in this edition do an excellent job in explaining them.pros: - up to date - detailed description of general concepts and specific materials - well structured - features materials (like leather, stone) as well as effects (like fog, fire) - downloadable materials are a good starting library - quality of materials is excellentcons: - hi-res illustrations must be downloaded separately (there are only lo-res ones in the pdf. This distracts greatly from the reading experience) - some more information on lighting would have been useful. This could easily fill a whole book itself but some information on this subject would make it easier to get the most out of these materials.Conclusion:Good value for your money.

Thought this book would be the ideal way of learning the Blender Node system, but was very disappointed on opening the book, although excellent step by step directions are given, the illustrations are virtually illegible!You would at least think the Node headers would be visible to help you identify them, but unfortunately not so.By buying the book, you can download a PDF of the illustrations, these are better but still not that clear when zoomed in to see the detail. Also they are not page referenced so you have to go through the book to identify them (not an easy task as some are out of order). This is an inconvenient way of using the book.The cover is in brilliant colour but the inside illustrations are all a very dark black & white.Shame really, a lot of effort has been put in by the author but you can't follow the illustrations, so it becomes very difficult to understand.You can also download the .blend files used in the book, so guess the £30 or so spent wasn't entirely wasted.Would not recommend, look for something clearer.

This book paid for itself in the first chapter. I've been having a problem with fireflies that I couldn't get any direct help for using google. Chapter 1, bang, done. Everything from here on is bonus.

Printing is poor quality. Images blurry.