She-Wolf (WIP)
Added 2025-03-30 21:22:49 +0000 UTCHey everyone! We're back to Apex this week with Loba!
I had a bit of a discovery when working on this one. For the longest time I've been trying to replicate the unique look that nylon has, as in stockings. I've tried multiple node setups, but none quite achieved the same look. My most recent attempts have been with the Fresnel Node, which got close, but not quite there. I've recently found out about the Layer Weight Node, which has both the Fresnel and "Facing" outputs. By connecting the Facing output into the Alpha socket of the Principled Shader, I finally got the effect that I was looking for. If any fellow artists are interested in replicating this look, the key is to keep the areas around the corners of your surface darker, or less transparent. The node has a slider that allows you to control the effect, and you can also tweak it with a Color Ramp Node. This node mimics a real world phenomenon that affects many kinds of reflective surfaces, so it can also be used to tweak the roughness of many different types of materials.
I'm currently working on ideas for the next animation. There are a few specific things I want to do with it. The main one is that I want to work with EEVEE, Blender's faster render engine. A lot of great artists create beautiful renders with it, and I want to learn it as well. EEVEE has way faster render times. I recently found out that Flow, the Blender animation that won an Oscar, was rendered in EEVEE—0.5 to 10 seconds per frame. That is amazing.
As usual, early access to this week's post will be available on Wednesday. Thank you all for your continued support.
