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Training Highlights
Stylized Rendering with Brushstrokes
Geometry Nodes from Scratch
Procedural Shading Fundamentals
Stylized Character Workflow

Training types
Course Documentation Production Lesson Workshop

Training categories
Animation Geometry Nodes Lighting Rendering Rigging Shading
Film Highlights
Wing It!
2023
Charge
2022
Sprite Fright
2021
Spring
2019
Project Highlights
Project DogWalk
Interactive
Gold
Showcase
BCON24 Identity
Showcase
Fighting with Grease Pencil
Article
Course
Procedural Shading: Fundamentals and Beyond
Introduction
  1. 01

    Introduction

    Free
  2. 02

    Definition

  3. 03

    Content Overview

  4. 04

    The Shader Editor

1: Fundamentals
  1. 01

    Colors, Values & Vectors

  2. 02

    Vectors and Pixels

  3. 03

    Coordinate Types

  4. 04

    Value Control

2: Procedural Textures
  1. 01

    Noise Textures

  2. 02

    Shape Control

  3. 03

    Repetition

  4. 04

    Texture Composition

  5. 05

    Space Manipulation

3: Shading Principles
  1. 01

    PBR

  2. 02

    Geometric Dependency - Context Sensitivity

  3. 03

    Generating PBR Maps

4: Shader Composition
  1. 01

    Blending & Masking

  2. 02

    Randomization

  3. 03

    Semi-Procedural Workflow

  4. 04

    Volumetric Shaders

5: Modular Setup
  1. 01

    Parametrization

  2. 02

    Nodegroups

6: Automation
  1. 01

    Drivers

  2. 02

    Animation

Workflow Examples
  1. 01

    Walls (Chapter 2+)

  2. 02

    Wood (Chapter 3+)

  3. 03

    Dynamic Walls (Chapter 4+)

  4. 04

    Wooden Boards (Chapter 5+)

  5. 05

    Fire (Chapter 6+)

  6. 06

    Rainy Window (Chapter 6+)

Files & Tools
  1. Example Scene
  2. Example Scene - Simplified Free
  3. Visualization (Chapter 1-4): Value Graph
  4. Visualization (Chapter 2-5): Space Origami
  5. Example Shader (Chapter 3-1): Rock
  6. Example Shader (Chapter 4-1): Dilapidated Cube Scene
  7. Example Shader (Chapter 4-3): Image Texture De-Tiling
  8. Example Shader (Chapter 4-3): Semi-Procedural Fishbones Boards
  9. Example Shader (Chapter 4-4): Procedural Volumetric Clouds

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Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes Author
License CC-BY
Report Problem
Files & Tools

Example Scene

An example scene using exclusively procedural shaders, including volumetric shading, animated shaders, different types of tiling, procedural shape generation and much more.

Due to the fact that complex procedural shaders can be incredibly demanding for especially the usage of Eevee a simplified version of the scene able to run on older graphics cards showcases the same functionalities trading off some of the detail.

Join to leave a comment.

17 comments
fuguesoft
fuguesoft
March 5th, 2024

When will the videos be available on mobile? I’ve signed in and even requested the desktop site but it appears there may be a specific query based on screen size that doesn’t allow for the links to be clickable

Márton Lente
Márton Lente
March 6th, 2024

@MeLlamanHokage Thank you for reporting this. There's indeed an issue with navigating the trainings on mobile screens, which we'll address soon. In the meanwhile, we suggest you use a desktop or a tablet to access the trainings.

dmdsik
dmdsik
May 12th, 2021

This course is the kindest and most informative of all the node lectures that currently exist. TY bb

Luis Saybe
Luis Saybe
Dec. 9th, 2020

The non-simplified scene runs on my 16GB macbook M1, blender hasn't been released yet for M1 natively so it's running on Rosetta, pretty surprised it still renders ok

Kyle Olson
Kyle Olson
Nov. 24th, 2020

Hi All, Not sure if Intel really matters, but I've had no problem rendering on my GTX 1070 8GB VRAM with an Intel I7 and 32GB RAM. Viewport runs relatively smooth in Eevee and I rendered 5 frames in about 20 min on Cycles.

Zamboolah Wigi Wigi
Zamboolah Wigi Wigi
Aug. 27th, 2020

Hello, may I ask why my setup is struggling with this blend file. I'm on a: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X with 32GB ram on an RTX 2070 SUPER

Do you need an INTEL proc for this platform?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Aug. 27th, 2020

*@Zamboolah Wigi Wigi* Hi, because all textures are procedural, the performance highly depends on the size of the viewport window that you are trying to render. So if you are trying to display the scene on a large monitor and have the viewport on fullscreen, pretty much any system will struggle with the scene.

But to find out if there is a problem on your end, you have to specify what you mean with struggling. Do you mean Eevee shader compilation or framerate, or Cycles render time?

As far as I know Intel vs AMD is not a relevant factor here.

Zamboolah Wigi Wigi
Zamboolah Wigi Wigi
Aug. 29th, 2020

*@Simon Thommes* i will check it again and ill be more specific next time sir. thank you for replying.

Huân Lê-Vương
Huân Lê-Vương
Aug. 5th, 2020

hello, can I have the specs of the mentor's machine please? i'm going to invest a machine for blender.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Aug. 5th, 2020

*@Huân Lê-Vương* The most relevant for scenes like this is the graphics card. On my work PC that I am using for most of the video recording I have an Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000, which is why it runs so smoothly. I also tried the scene on a GTX 1070, which ran more choppy but still well. So, I recommend getting a graphics card with at least 8GB of VRAM, if possible.

(The workflow example videos are recorded on a machine with a GTX 1080)

Huân Lê-Vương
Huân Lê-Vương
Aug. 6th, 2020

*@Simon Thommes* thanks!

Jorge Restrepo
Jorge Restrepo
July 29th, 2020

Sadly, it is too much for my computer.

Here are the specs of my pc, just as a reference: Ryzen 7 2700 RTX 2060 16 Gb of Ram

The Tech Academy
The Tech Academy
July 29th, 2020

*@Jorge Restrepo* seriouslyyyy :(

Show more replies
Jorge Restrepo
Jorge Restrepo
July 30th, 2020

I downloaded the file again and gave it another try. This time everything worked. I'll blame the stars position or some other esoteric reason for the previous failure, hehe.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
July 30th, 2020

*@Jorge Restrepo* okay, I don't know what that might have been, but I'm glad it worked out!

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
July 29th, 2020

*@Jorge Restrepo* Sorry to hear that, this is interesting. Your specs should definitely be sufficient! I even tested the scene on a laptop with RTX 2060, which is less powerful than the desktop version and it worked there. Can you tell me what exactly doesn't work for you? Are shaders not compiling in Eevee and just turn pink? is it a problem when you try to render with Cycles? Or something else?

Jorge Restrepo
Jorge Restrepo
July 30th, 2020

*@Simon Thommes* It simply doesn't compile the shaders. I left it on its own for a while to see if it would just take some time... But the scene never (at least for an hour) changed the grey color. If it is something about my settings, that would be a relief. Do you have any clues about what could be causing the issue?

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