3D Environment Design with Blender: Enhance your modeling, texturing, and lighting skills to create realistic 3D scenes

Description

Save time and effort when building 3D scenes with this essential guide to creating stunning photorealistic 3D environments in Blender Key FeaturesReveal modeling tricks to make your Blender 3D environments look realisticDiscover techniques to enhance the photorealism of your scenes while saving timeSet up realistic lighting in your scenes to make your environment look pleasing to the eyeBook Description Blender is a powerful tool for creating all kinds of visual assets, but with such power comes complexity. Creating a photorealistic 3D scene seems like a Herculean task for more than 90% of 3D designers, but don’t be discouraged! 3D Environment Design with Blender will get you up and running. This practical guide helps reduce the complexity of 3D environment design, advance your Blender skills, and produce lifelike scenes and animations in a time-efficient manner. You'll start by learning how to fix the most common mistakes 3D designers make with modeling and scale matching that stop them from achieving photorealism. Next, you’ll understand the basics of realistic texturing, efficient unwrapping and achieving photorealistic lighting by turning an actual reference of a wood cabin into a realistic 3D scene. These skills will be used and expanded as you build a realistic 3D environment with natural assets and materials that you’ll create from scratch. Once you’ve developed your natural environment, you’ll advance to creating realistic render shots by applying cool camera features, and compositing tricks that will make your final render look photorealistic and pleasing to the eye. By the end of this book, you'll be able to implement modeling tricks and best practices to make your 3D environments look stunningly lifelike. What you will learnUnderstand how to avoid the most common modeling mistakes 3D designers makeCreate realistic landscapes using Blender's built-in A.N.T Landscape add-onBuild natural assets such as rocks, flowers, plants, and rivers that you can customize and use in a variety of projectsCreate realistic materials such as snow, mud, wood and animated waterUse the particle system to generate realistic grass, as well as scatter flowers and rocksApply the five lighting rules to achieve great photorealistic resultsUse nodes and materials effectively to produce impressive resultsWho this book is for This book is for 3D environment artists and open-world game designers who have tried designing 3D environments but have trouble finding the right Blender settings. If you feel overwhelmed understanding how nodes and materials work in Blender, this book will simplify it for you and help you achieve photorealism in your environments in no time. Familiarity with the Blender interface is expected to get the most out of this book. Table of ContentsMost Common Modeling Mistakes That Prevent You from Achieving PhotorealismThe Basics of Realistic Texturing in BlenderEfficient Unwrapping and Texturing in BlenderCreating Realistic Natural Plants in BlenderAchieve Photorealistic Lighting in Your Environment with BlenderCreating Realistic Landscapes in BlenderCreating and Animating Realistic, Natural-Looking WaterCreating Procedural Mud MaterialTexturing the Landscape with Mud MaterialCreating Natural Assets: RockCreating Realistic Flowers in BlenderUsing Particle System to Scatter Objects in BlenderFinalizing the Landscape Scene – Lighting, Rendering, and Compositing Cover Title Page Copyright and Credits Dedication Foreword Contributors Table of Contents Preface Part 1: Turn a Real Reference into a Realistic 3D Scene in Blender Chapter 1: Most Common Modeling Mistakes That Prevent You from Achieving Photorealism Technical requirements The importance of using a real-world scale Learning scale matching using fSpy Downloading fSpy Breaking down the fSpy tools Adjusting the focal length Exporting the fSpy file Building our scene The importance of using the bevel modifier when modeling Summary Chapter 2: The Basics of Realistic Texturing in Blender Technical requirements Exploring the components for achieving photorealistic texturing in Blender The Base Color map The Roughness map The Normal map The Displacement map Creating a realistic wood material using procedural texturing in Blender The Mix node Adding color to the wood texture using the ColorRamp node Adding wood reflection using the Roughness map Adding bumps to the surface of the wood material Summary Chapter 3: Efficient Unwrapping and Texturing in Blender Technical requirements Importing the wood material Texturing our wood cabin What is UV mapping? Unwrapping the wood cabin Summary Chapter 4: Creating Realistic Natural Plants in Blender Technical requirements Modeling realistic natural ground Creating the plants and leaves Creating a green leaf Applying a Subdivision modifier to the leaf Texturing the leaf Creating the second type of plant Creating the dry leaves Texturing a realistic natural ground Using a particle system to scatter plants and leaves in our scene Adding the second type of plants Summary Chapter 5: Achieve Photorealistic Lighting in Your Environment with Blender Technical requirements Differences between the three render engines of Blender Using the sun to emit realistic lighting The Kelvin scale Applying the Kelvin temperature scale to the sun using the Blackbody node Rendering our scene Adding a background to your render Using a Blender Sky Texture node to light our environment Lighting our wood cabin with lamp objects Setting up realistic lighting using HDRI maps How to set up an HDRI environment background for our scene Summary Part 2: Creating Realistic Landscapes in Blender Chapter 6: Creating Realistic Landscapes in Blender Technical requirements Enabling the A.N.T. landscapes add-on Creating landscapes using the A.N.T add-on Tweaking the shape of the landscape Giving the landscape a real-scale measurement Creating a realistic snowy mountain Using the Separate XYZ node Using the node wrangler to display nodes Adding the Rocks texture to our mountain Adding Sky Texture to lighten our world Rendering our mountain with the Displacement map applied Changing the shape of the mountain Summary Chapter 7: Creating and Animating Realistic, Natural-Looking Water Technical requirements Creating a realistic, natural river Creating a water material Adding waves to the water’s surface Animating the water flow Creating a continuously looping animation Summary Chapter 8: Creating Procedural Mud Material Technical requirements Creating a realistic mud material using procedural texturing in Blender Creating the mud material Creating water puddles for the mud material Organizing the node setup using the Frame node Adding stones to the Mud material Combining the stones with the puddles Adding mud details Adding color to the mud material Adding reflection to the mud material Adding bumps to the mud material Adding displacement to the mud material Setting good lighting in our scene Summary Chapter 9: Texturing the Landscape with Mud Material Technical requirements Importing the Mud material Using groups to organize the Mud node setup Adding custom settings to the node group Creating a Texturing mask Texturing the landscape with mud and rocky snow Using groups to organize the rocky snow landscape node setup Summary Part 3: Creating Natural Assets Chapter 10: Creating Natural Assets: Rock Technical requirements Installing the rock generator add-on Creating rocks using the rock generator add-on Texturing the rock Creating a rock material The fastest way to set up PBR materials in Blender Unwrapping the rock object Setting up quick lighting for our scene Optimizing the rock geometry Summary Chapter 11: Creating Realistic Flowers in Blender Technical requirements Designing a buttercup Modeling the buttercup flower petals Modeling the buttercup flower stem Texturing the buttercup flower Unwrapping the buttercup flower Texturing the buttercup flower stem Creating the buttercup leaves Applying textures with Alpha transparency Sizing the buttercup flower Summary Part 4: Rendering Epic Landscape Shots Chapter 12: Using Particle System to Scatter Objects in Blender Technical requirements What is Particle System in Blender? Why should I use the Hair type of Particle System? Importing rock and flower assets into the landscape environment Importing the Rock object Using particles to scatter rocks in the landscape environment Placing the particles in the landscape Using Weight Paint to distribute particles Replacing particles with the Rock object Scattering flowers in the landscape Putting flower objects inside a collection Boosting your Blender performance with one click Summary Chapter 13: Finalizing the Landscape Scene – Lighting, Rendering, and Compositing Technical requirements Adjusting the landscape shape Assigning the mountain material to the new landscape Improving the water material Setting realistic lighting in our scene Rendering our scene Adding a camera to a scene Changing the rendering engine What is the right number of samples to use? Changing the rendered image resolution Rendering the landscape scene Compositing the scene Using the Color Balance node Adding Glare to the render Summary Index About Packt Other Books You May Enjoy