Day 4 - Lighting / Materials

Two main goals for today. First, talk about art telling a story. Second, learn about lighting and art.

Don’t forget to finish modeling Modeling a Low Poly Room. We’ll be introducing lighting in today’s videos.

• Assignment 3 - Mesh Modeling a Rocket is due today, Thursday

• Assignment 4 - Backstory is due Friday

• Assignment 5 - Low Poly Bedroom is due Tuesday

Eevee vs Cycles

Take the default scene. Add a large plane and put below the cube.

Switch view to ‘rendered’.

Talk about rendering engines. We’ll talk about accuracy vs. time in rendering speed. What the differences between Eevee and Cycles are, and how to switch blender between the two.

Lighting in Blender

Download the files for the videos here. Start with the cornell-box_portal.blend file.

Required technical lighting videos

• The 7 Ways of Creating Light (9 min)

Optional technical lighting videos

• Indirect Lighting and Light Bounces

• Volumetric Lighting (Use the cornell-box_portal.blend file.)

Required videos and the artistic use of light

• Switching Over to Eevee

• The Three Point Lighting Setup

• Working with Shadows and Gradients

• The Five Roles of Lighting

Materials in Blender

Download the shader totem used in the videos.

• How Shaders Manipulate Light

• Creating Materials in Blender

• Assigning Material Slots to Objects and Faces

This video introduces the “node editor.” Depending on your experience level, it can be exciting or a horrifying mess of lines and boxes. (Or both.) It allows you to create incredibly detailed and realistic materials. For this class, you don’t really need that level of detail. I’m just providing this video as an introduction to let people know it is there if you are interested.

• Using Blender’s Shader Editor

Done with the videos? Finish your low-poly bedroom. Apply what you’ve learned to light that room.