When the hard part of designing and lighting your scene is complete, the next and sometimes harder step for many aspiring 3D artists is setting up the shader materials for a model. Many artists can rely on the Principled BSDF shader for solid colors and simple kinds of surfaces, or create UV maps using third-party …

Has this happened to you? For one reason or another, Blender encounters an error and suddenly has to close, but you haven’t saved your progress before it crashes. Or your mind wanders, and you close the program before saving. What happens to the file and all the hard work you have put into your scene? …

The image format that you choose for your render can greatly change the way your final product will look. Images can be compressed to save disk space with lossy formats, while lossless formats sacrifice space for quality and fewer encoding artifacts. So, which is the right way to go about rendering your image? First, it’s …

One of the coolest features added to Blender since the 2.7 release is the Wireframe Modifier. Keep reading to find out what it does and how to set it up in Cycles and Eevee. What Is Blender’s Wireframe Modifier? In short, Blender’s wireframe modifier allows you to see what your mesh is actually made of …

Depending on your workstation’s specifications, rendering a scene can be an excruciatingly slow process. If upgrading your hardware isn’t an option, you may try to change your settings to speed up rendering, which often sacrifices quality in the process. Let’s take a look at some things to watch out for and what you can do …

Since the release of Blender 2.8, the software’s newest real-time renderer Eevee has proven itself to be a revolutionary engine. However, while first impressions may make you consider replacing Cycles as your default renderer, there are several considerations that need to be made before doing so — especially if you’re interested in creating photo-realistic scenes …

With 2020 coming to a close, there’s no better time to reflect on some of the year’s best highlights in GPU technology: The release of Radeon’s powerful RX 5000 and 6000 series and NVIDIA’s hefty GeForce RTX 3000 series. We’ve compared GPUs in the past, but this time we’re going to test the performance speed …

Even with the release of Blender 2.9, not much has changed in terms of rendering capability. Blender still comes with three engines: Workbench, Eevee, and Cycles. Of course, they are great for what they are and can get the job done, but it’s important not to limit yourself to only what is included right out …

As a free, open-source software for 3D modeling and animation, Blender has democratized the industry to a generation of aspiring designers, architects, and animators. The system is quite intuitive on its own, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for additional training tools and support guides to grow your skills. While there are plenty …

Blender 2.9 has made great strides in improving visuals and rendering 3D models and animations. Most noticeably, the way it visualizes OpenVDB and volume simulations. Where it was merely implemented as importable in 2.83 LTS, 2.9’s update has drastically improved the visual fidelity of voxels that allow for simulations such as smoke, fire, and explosion …