Goals
Students will learn how to apply simple materials, textures, and shaders to mesh objects.
Skills
- Materials, Textures and Shaders
- UV Unwrapping
- Transparent materials

Assignment Details
You need to demonstrate at least 4 materials:
- a basic color
- a simple texture
- a transparent texture
- a UV wrapped texture.
You can create the following mesh objects with the following materials or textures applied to them to accomplish this assignment.
- Two walls and a floor made out of planes or cubes and placed together to form a corner of a room. Add the following textures to them.
- Add a simple color to at least one of them.
- Add a simple texture or material (bricks, stone, metal, wood, etc) to at least one of them.
- Add a color or material to the third wall just so that it is not gray like the Blender void.
- Add a transparent object in the room so that you can look through it to the objects above. In order to see transparent objects, you need to look through them to other objects and not the Blender void.
- Use a somewhat complex object for the transparency. Basic shapes such as cubes and spheres don’t reflect light very well and can be hard to see as transparencies. Good transparent objects to use include:
- A drinking glass or cup. You can create this from a cube, inset the top face and then extrude the middle face in.
- The monkey mesh object (Suzanne). This object has many faces and reflects light well for this project.
- Your object from the Beginner Modeling assignment. Don’t use the Beginner Meshes objects as they are all simple objects and will each require transparent materials applied to them.
- Add the transparency using one of the techniques in the tutorials below. There are many ways to do transparencies, I just need to see one way. See below for some other tips on transparent objects.
- Use a somewhat complex object for the transparency. Basic shapes such as cubes and spheres don’t reflect light very well and can be hard to see as transparencies. Good transparent objects to use include:
- A cube or other simple mesh that has simple UV mapping and wrapping applied to it, including the setting of seams. You need to use a separate 2D image (jpg, png, etc) to wrap onto your object. Instead of a checkerboard from the tutorial, try a different texture, like stripes, applied to a cube. You can do a quick Google search for texture images that can be used for this or use the texture from an object above. UV wrapping more complex objects like your object from the Beginner Modeling project is more complicated than you need for this assignment. UV wrapping complex objects is a skill for the Intermediate Materials and Textures assignment.
Tips
Transparent Objects
When viewing transparencies, keep in mind there are 2 different ways to view them when rendered: EVEE and Cycles. Here are some things to look from when viewing transparent objects in v2.8
- Cycles Rendering
- Render Settings
- switch to Cycles, not EVEE, rendering to see the above transparency
- Cycles is more precise, but much slower than EVEE.
- EVEE: In order to see the transparency and not just the reflected world image, check the following boxes.
- Object Material Properties
- Settings: Check Screen Space Reflections
- Render Settings
- Check Screen Space Reflections
- Check Refraction
- Check Screen Space Reflections
- Object Material Properties
Submitting your work
Image files that you use for the materials or textures don’t normally get attached to your Blender file. So, if you just submit your work, Mr. Didier won’t be able to view your work properly. If you used any files or images as the materials or textures for any of your objects, you need to make these files available when you submit your work for grading. You can do this two ways.
- Upload the individual files alongside the Blender file in Google Classroom when you submit your work.
- Pack the files using the File–External Data–Pack All Into .Blend. This puts all the images files into the Blender file so that you only need to submit one file, your Blender file.
Resources
Blender Fundementals 2.8 tutorials
Intro to Shading
Shading Editor
Intro to Textures
UV Unwrapping
Procedural Textures
Transparent Glass
Glass and Liquid
Realistic Glass Shader
Rubric
Grade / Topic |
A |
B |
C |
Simple Color |
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Simple Texture |
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Transparent Texture |
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UV mapped/ wrapped object |
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