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

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