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Share via E-mailIn this tutorial we will be creating a brick texture using nothing but procedural textures and Blender’s powerful new texture node system.
Let’s begin…
Start by adding a plane and rotating it to face the camera.
With the plane selected, add a new material and new texture. Those familar with blender will recognize that a new button labelled Nodes has been added. Click it. You will notice that doing so, disables the standard dropdown texture choices.
Now switch to the Node editor.
Again, you will notice a new button has been added to the header, in the shape of a spotted square. Click it to switch to the Texturing Node system.
By default you will see a checkboard and output nodes. Go ahead and delete the checkerboard node.
Creating the brick mask
Add a brick texture by hitting space then selecting, Add>Patterns>Bricks. Change the settings to the picture below and connect it to the Output node.
This basic brick texture will be used as the foundation to create our diffuse, bump, pattern and spec maps, so we want to make sure that if we change any of the settings, that all 4 textures update accordingly. So to do this, we need to create a group.
With only the Brick node selected hit Ctrl+G, and click Make Group. To make it easier to identify later, label it ‘Mask’:
The new node system allows us to add multiple outputs to the same node screen for each texture map that we need. In this case we are creating 4, so with the Mask and the Output nodes selected, duplicate it three times and label the outputs: Diffuse, Pattern, Spec and Bump.
That’s the basic brick mask set up. We will now move on to texturing each map accordingly.
Altering the Pattern Texture
Create two cloud inputs (Add>Textures>Clouds) and give them the following settings:
These cloud layers will be used to give the bricks a randomized texture pattern depending on the row and number of the brick. To do this, join each cloud layer to the brick inputs in the mask that is connected to the Pattern output:
The Bias setting can be adjusted from -1.00 to 1.00. This determines how much of Brick 1 and Brick 2 to use. Setting it to 0.00 will use both Brick 1 and Brick 2 evenly, creating a nice random brick texture, which is ideal for what we want.
Altering the Specular Texture
Just like we did with our pattern texture, we are going to be adding a texture that will reflect the light off our bricks. So in this instance the Musgrave texture works best (Add>Texture>Musgrave). Give the Musgrave texture the following settings (making sure you change the colors as shown) then insert it into the Brick 1 slot. Now change the colour of Brick 2 to black:
This will create a fine sandy texture that will reflect off the light.
Altering the Bump Map Texture
The bump is slightly different in that we aren’t altering brick slot 1 or 2, but instead converting the resulting texture to a normal map. To do this, add a Value to Normal node (Add>Convertor>Value to Normal) and place it in between the mask and the output as shown. Make sure that you change the connection on the output from Color to Normal.
This will ensure our bricks have nice bevelled edges.
The node system is now complete!
Adding the Node System to the Texture Panel
If you switch to the texture panel in our material settings, you will notice that our texture now has a dropdown list next to it, listing each of our outputs. This allows us to bring the textures from node system into our standard texture panel and change the blending options.
To start with select Diffuse from the drop down list.
Now swith to the Map To panel and make the following changes.
Going back to our Texture Panel, add another texture slot and change the output to Spec:
Switch to the Map To panel and make the following changes:
Add another texture slot and select Bump for the output:
Now make the following changes in the Map To panel:
Add a final texture slot and select Pattern as the output:
Switch to the Map To tab and make the following changes:
That’s it! If you render now, you should get a result similar to this:
I used the default brick size for this tutorial which is quite large. If you want to decrease their size, this can easily be done by altering the size of the texture in the Map Input field.
For example, altering those numbers to 3.00 yields this result:
As you can see the texture node system is incredibly powerful. It can be used to quickly create texture combinations that previously would have required the use of an image editor. This opens the doors to faster workflows, more realistic textures and more artistic license.
I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial! If you have any questions be sure to ask. I’d love to see your end result, so feel free to post it below!
thnx for the great tutorial.
Is it possible to reproduce this in the BGE using GLSL, but without baking textures. using the texture nodes instead?
Thank You, It almost worked exactly, but I didn’t know what kind of light to use, and I’m using the mac version 2.49a?
great work. since i am using 2.5 and im a beginer, it took me awhile to translate some of the tutorial, but i got it. i am planning on using something similar to this in my RPG game. thank you for the help!
Sorry to hear that.
A truly brilliant tutorial.
However, it’s easily applied to flat surfaces, however when I tried to apply it to a cube, it brought me a whole lot of trouble.
Setting [Map Input -> Cube] did not work.
Thanks for the tut, but couldn’t actually get it to work. Fine up to ‘add a new texture’ and then one unpredictable behaviour after another; eg no drop down list of the four textures, or ‘specular’ coming up repeatedly when I had chosen ‘diffuse’, or all the nodes disappearing. Looks like a bug or a missing crucial component of the tutorial.
I find a common problem with these “do as I do”-style ‘tutorials’ is often they lack explanation of why you’re doing what you’re doing. I’ve no idea why I got these behaviours, nor where to look.
Again, Thank You. It seems to me that you be gifted with a strong faculty of intuition, and/or recollection, because you say that you learned all of this about blender by continuous trial and error? I am but a newbie loser user, comparatively . That Blender itself is GPL is what makes me want to Learn it. I personally have a working history with AutoDeska, and despise how they buy up anything thats any good and turn around and charge thousands of dollars for it, and upgrade Non-transpearantly. ( i don’t know how to spell very well). Anyway, that you are a good presenter, (i am working from your video of the Inception – hallway scene) is evident, because I can follow you in it. The fellow Brux, who said that the problem was with the “do-as-I-do” style tutes, is, I believe mistaken. As in this case one ought to do as you have done because it is how to accomplish the end, which is the point of the tutorial in the first place. I just was using a pdf based tutorial out of Blenderart Magazine number 28, on how to build and use a stereo camera setup, and either english is not his first language, and/or he got distracted by huge amount of details and I lost his thread and its right there in print! But he also gives copious info about why he did what he did, and why the tutee/tutoree should too. And it didn’t help me. I mean I must study it a lot more. If a guy like you could take that guys article/tutorial and give it your (I wan to say) Professional polish, I think that “Stereo Camera” would soon be an Add-on, if not a standard tool. like a key toggled Stereo/Mono setting on all cameras. No? (you’re too modest).
How about an update on this tutorial for 2.5?
Very good and thank you
How about an update on this tutorial for 2.5?
I’m wondering if there’s a tutorial for this in 2.5… thanks
Actually u don’t need a tutorial for 2.5 you can still follow this tutorial on 2.5 aswell I’ve tried it it works really well, just thought I’d mention this.
To sha:
Thanks a lot! I haven’t tried it yet but I bet you’re right!
using blender 2.5 and the Nodes selection box won#t appear.. anyone else have this problem? How do I fix it please?
Its at the bottom of the Graph Editor. Just scroll across a bit.
New to blender,where did this get downloaded on my computer,it’s a mac pro and it didn’t go into my downloads folder first.I’d Just like to know where these files our saved on my computer as i am new to working with blender.
Thanks aldo
Dear Andrew,
I must confess I cannot find the brick pattern node in blender 2.5 node editing menu. Is there one?
@mcshlik, @Reidh
Make a new material, new texture (type=none), and go to Node Editor. Select your texture in the dropdown list (window header) and “Use nodes” checkbox will appear on the right. Hope this helps.
@micheal
I know how to use nodes in v2.56a but where is “bricks” or what sort of input is it?
Add->Patterns->Bricks
Be sure to select texture nodes before.
Here you have a screenshot showing that http://i.imgur.com/m83Ti.jpg
I finally figured out how to use the “brick” pattern in 2.56a. But I can’t get it if I open a Material First, or at all. But then I don’t know how to get mapped to any object. I think this tute needs an update for v2.56a. Perhaps A.P. is waiting until the developer guys have stopped continually stroking the infrastructure to settle upon One definitive way of implementing Nodes in Blender?
Beautifal
Youve got it in one. Couldnt have put it betetr.
Hey I’ve been having a problem:
I add the material, add the texture, create the scene but in the render the object that I applied the texture doesn’t render (it keeps black).
Can someone help me?
All perfectly done
I was so happy finding this but, Everything was fine till i came upon adding a brick node, Its all blank within patterns, are the brick textures an add-on?
Great tutorial, Managed to get it working perfectly in 2.60. thanks
Beautiful and very instructive. Andrew, as always, thanks for sharing your time and talent with us.