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In Blender Render let's say I want to texture a box.

This would be my process:

  • Model than UV UNWrap
  • Bake AO to a image set blend mode to multiply
  • Add diffuse texture with appropriate blend mode on a DIFFERENT UV Map to allow changing the size of the wood grains.
  • Add normal or bump with appropriate blend mode on same UV Map as AO.
  • Add "grunge" layer in which to add decals etc on same UV MAp as AO.

Doing this in Blender Render was really easy.

In cycles I'm getting VERY lost trying to do these exact same tasks. Even after looking at the manual. I think nodes just scare me I'm not sure. I've made SOME progress and I see the power of nodes, but helping me clear up how to do some common functions like these would probably set off a chain reaction of "Oh I see now".

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  • $\begingroup$ Do you mean in the Node Editor ? $\endgroup$
    – A.D.
    Aug 29, 2015 at 21:08
  • $\begingroup$ Well yes that is what I mean I guess. Sorry new to the node stuff =/ $\endgroup$
    – David Prentice
    Aug 29, 2015 at 21:25
  • $\begingroup$ In cycles you don't have to bake the ambient occlusion. There is a shader node for that. $\endgroup$
    – user1853
    Aug 29, 2015 at 21:33
  • $\begingroup$ In future, I would suggest asking one question at a time as many of the individual processes you were looking to convert from Blender Internal to Cycles have already been answered on the site. $\endgroup$
    – Ray Mairlot
    Sep 2, 2015 at 12:59

1 Answer 1

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Introduction to Nodes

Well, you can have all sort of nodes, mostly it's quite strait forward what the node does, for an instance the Transparency node or the diffuse, glass, glossy or emission node. Depending on what you want to make you might want to Mix two nodes, for that you would use a Mix Shader node or an Add Shader node, the difference is that the Mix Shader node has a more controll over the Factor that the two nodes are displayed. I'll give some examples of how you can do basic things with nodes.

  • Giving material an Image Texture

    To give a material an Image Texture you would create a Diffuse Node then connect to it the Image Texture Node and plug the Diffuse Node in to the Surface slot in the Material Output Node.

enter image description here

  • Giving material a normal map

    There are couple of ways that you can give your material a Normal Map but a common one would be by simply connecting a Normal Map node into the Normal slot of the Diffuse Node, also for Normal Map to work properly you have to plug into the Color slot of the Normal Map node another Image Texture Node, this Image Texture would be your Normal Map.

enter image description here

  • Adding Decals to your material

Adding Decals to your model is slightly more difficult, to add a Decal to your material you would need to connect MixRGB Node into the Diffuse Node, then you will have to connect your Base Texture into the bottom slot and the Decal Image Texture into the upper slot of the MixRGB and finally use the Alpha value as the factor for them both, just like so:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ This is an excellent post Igor this helps me a lot! One final question. cegaton mentioned you don't bake AO you use a node for this. Is this done with an add shader or a mix shader? It seems like with nodes you just have to know where to plug them in properly. $\endgroup$
    – David Prentice
    Aug 29, 2015 at 21:58
  • $\begingroup$ Here's a bit of info on how to bake AO using Cycles. blender.stackexchange.com/questions/27964/… $\endgroup$
    – MarcClintDion
    Aug 30, 2015 at 5:18
  • $\begingroup$ I prefer to just disable GI and set a Diffuse material to pure white (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) but you can use the light path node to cancel GI for deeper surfaces as shown here, it's configurable and you can use this to do colors and textures grim easily. blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14400/… $\endgroup$
    – MarcClintDion
    Aug 30, 2015 at 5:31

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