I am trying Blender and skipping around tutorials. I did an intro to blender modelling which made a cup, plate and donut so thats started.

I am having trouble coming to terms with materials. I understand I think that the internal render engine and cycles use different material.

I learned that you can link materials from another blend file. I have been collecting materials that are free as I find them. I have a script for Daz Studio to Blender that seems to work quite well.

It seems , and I hope I am wrong, that you have to load materials for eacg scene and there is no central materials library that you can use in any scene.

What am I missing ?

thanks for any help.

Blender Internal and Cycles are two different render engines for Blender. Cycles is newer, more advanced and more commonly used. Blender does not come with any "pre-built" Cycles material libraries if that's what you are asking. It does come with the base shaders needed to create any material you can imagine, but it would be up to you the user to build your own materials from scratch or to accumulate material libraries from other sources. Fortunately, there are many tutorials out there to show you how to create just about any material you could want in Cycles from scratch, or you can download materials from any of the repository sites. Some materials are free, but some are paid. Here's a few links:

150 Free Cycles Shaders - Blender Nation https://www.blendernation.com/2015/09/29/150-free-cycles-shaders/

BlendSwap - You can find both materials and blend files for download here http://www.blendswap.com/

Cycles Material Vault - NOT a free resource, so I will not directly link to the site but if you're willing to join they do have some very good Cycles materials. https://www.cyclesmaterialvault.com/

The meta-androcto is a material library collected for Cycles from the community on Blendswap. You must log in to download. http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/56470

Hopefully this will help get you started.

I think LuxXeon completely covered it: there is some work being done on a centralised material library component of sorts, but it has been ages in the making and is still not ready for prime time. I've sort-of written a python script for painting very, very, VERY basic 'shaders' on V4, Antonia and others, but it is still quite rough and the shaders are more of a proof-of-concept thing rather than very usable of themselves. I guess I was trying to see if I could do it, but got bogged down by my day job.

Thanks, I have been getting some stuff from Blenderswap/ What I am missing is how when I start a new scene can I have those materials available on the materials drop-down. I am linking them as I require them.

OK, I found a tutorial that might work. I will give it a ret and see. At the moment I have about 50 materials for cycles but that meant 50 blend files to link every time I open Blender.

Yes I agree LuXxeon covered all the ways and from your second question about having those material available to use with in a scene you are working on you would have to append the current file you are working on with the materials from another file here is a tutorial on how to create your own material library that might be useful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UpAaGa25Ug Good luck and let us know how it works out

markschum posted at 8:14PM Fri, 05 May 2017 - #4304289

OK, I found a tutorial that might work. I will give it a ret and see. At the moment I have about 50 materials for cycles but that meant 50 blend files to link every time I open Blender.

Yikes! You might want to make your own library. Instead of doing a link, I'd be appending and assigning the material to, say, a vertex group or mat zone of some mesh: you could give the mat zone or vertex group a similar name to the material in that .blend. (I know, not a very clear explanation). I guess what I'm driving at is that you'll be able to multi-select shaders and materials from one "object" to link or append to your new project.

What I have been doing lately to build my library up is just typing into google what I'm looking for and then blender node set up or blender material setup etc. And then opening the images page, which has a lot of screen shots that people have people have posted with different variations of the material. Then build the setup myself which I find better than linking from someone else's source that I d/loaded. As I can see what each node does as I plug it in and how it effects the model as I build it up to the desired result. If I like what I have done then save it out as a blend file.

Incantrix

Here are some options if you are looking to have a reusable material library. Blendermada is a free online material library and the Cycles Material Vault and Asset Manager need to be bought. Cycles Material Vault comes with its own Material Library browser and the Asset Manager is a management system that allows you to add your own materials to a material library.

• Blendermada
• Cycles Material Vault
• Asset Manager