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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
2: Procedural Textures

Noise Textures

You can get the file for the Value Graph Tool here: https://cloud.blender.org/p/procedural-shading/5f075c60f11c51bf02b95fa1

Join to leave a comment.

18 comments
Leslie Solorzano
Leslie Solorzano
April 20th, 2025

What happened with Musgrave texture? It was removed later. I was just curious why, and if it can be achieved with the other noises.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
April 21st, 2025

@Leslie Solorzano the musgrave texture has essentially been merged into the regular Noise texture node. It's available in the form of new noise types.

Jonathan Hudson
Jonathan Hudson
July 18th, 2023

This visualisation tool you have created is brilliant, it makes it so much easier to understand what is going when you change a value.

Anmol Krishna
Anmol Krishna
March 15th, 2023

@Simon Thommes I have one query not related to this but you know like...in texture baking of snow character in Blender Studio live stream by @Julien Kaspar ....he separated the head, hands, and remaining body for baking, and it's DONE but the issue is how I can apply those baked textures to same object where the whole character is one mesh not separated but we have a different diffuse map, roughness values of character..so I hope I cleared the point..so please help me out....?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
April 13th, 2023

@Anmol Krishna Sorry, but this is very much off-topic. This depends on the UV layout. If previously each object had their own UV space and the merged character needs a shared UV space I would suggest using UDIMs.

Anmol Krishna
Anmol Krishna
April 13th, 2023

@Simon Thommes ok, so how can I import UDIMs, like of wanna use diffuse map color right with 3 maps of the head, body, and fingers then how is it going to be reflected or applied in shading nodes as we are going to add "Image Textures" of a bunch of 3 and having same base color diff maps of same mesh...?

Seif Hussam
Seif Hussam
Dec. 12th, 2021

Hey Simon, i can't find this file any where can you please put another link here?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Dec. 14th, 2021

@Seif Hussam In the description of this video you can find the link to the tool and there you can simply click on the Download button.

higgi270
higgi270
July 6th, 2021

Hey Simon, this is a great course! I am having some trouble following the technical aspects of procedural shading and am wondering if there are files that we can explore on this chapter like the file created for the color vectors. I am trying to explore the texture nodes explained in this video in some of my own scenes, but am having trouble just getting started (lots of pink objects :) Could we also explore the file used in this video?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
July 7th, 2021

@higgi270 Of course, I usually link to the files used in the video description. This here is the value graph tool that I built to visualize texture values: https://cloud.blender.org/p/procedural-shading/5f075c60f11c51bf02b95fa1 In the chapter on value control I explain it a bit more. I hope that helps :)

higgi270
higgi270
July 7th, 2021

@Simon Thommes Oh shoot, sorry. I checked back to the chapter and it was indeed linked to the bottom of the video. This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Tighe Racicot
Tighe Racicot
Feb. 8th, 2021

Quick tip if your computer chokes on rendering the graph. Make the ZX and ZY planes selectable, then select each and reduce the array modifier fixed counts to a lower value until your computer can handle the computations. Mine still struggles with only 10 planes each heh :S

aneeqtariq.5710
aneeqtariq.5710
Nov. 13th, 2020

hi, can you  kindly explain a bit about using one  Perlin texture onto other which you mentioned as octaves?

victor p
victor p
Sept. 20th, 2020

Hi Simon, can you tell me why the color is not showing up in my viewport?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q6x7f6_FjWDTBfvc424vxmH61FyfPy5T/view?usp=sharing

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Sept. 21st, 2020

*@victor p* The value graph tool only works for 1-dimensional outputs (which are translated into the height), so it converts the color into a value. So the grayscale map that you are seeing are exactly the values that are corresponding to the color map. How that works is explained in Chapter 1-1.

victor p
victor p
Sept. 22nd, 2020

*@Simon Thommes* but yours in this video have colors on it..

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fHyMlna2Rv2Wk6tG8QV5Rngeqgj0_Z5h/view?usp=sharing

How come?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Sept. 22nd, 2020

*@victor p* Ah, you are right!

I looked it up and this was a change in Blender for Eevee to make the behaviour consistent with how it is in Cycles: https://developer.blender.org/T71374

victor p
victor p
Sept. 23rd, 2020

*@Simon Thommes* aha ok so its a new update. Thank you Simon

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