Blender 3d: New User Cycles Node Tips

Hey, new Blender user, have you seen the many tutorials about Blender 2.79 Cycles nodes and making materials? Believe me, that’s something very common for Blender new users.

However, none of those “popular” Blender 2.79 tutorials ever mentioned the T-panel in the node editor. WHY? Not sure. It could be because they’ve been conditioned to use the ADD tab, the search bar, or SHIFT-A.

If you need proof, find those 2.79 tutorials and you’ll see, that they add each node one by one, the hard way. They can create intricate materials, but they didn’t use or inform their audience about the node editor’s T-Panel, to add nodes. WOW.

Unfortunately, Blender 2.8+ dropped this most useful section. (if it’s there, I can’t find it…oh, well).

Alas, they are other ways to streamline adding nodes into the Shader editor, thereby, making learning materials less monotonous and increasing your proficiency.

There’s no need to use shift-a, shift-a, shift-a every time you add a node.

You can “prepare” all your nodes and have them easily available.

Now, learning how to network each node to create: water, glass, metal, wood, and other materials, well, that’s a horse of a different color.

Nonetheless, this tutorial will show new Blender users a shortcut process of material making and see how different material networks are put together.

To new users, learning how to make materials can be daunting. The frustration is because, you want to know how to make the materials mentioned above, plus more, but there’s not a good source to teach – anyone.

Blender has a way for you to preview “how it’s made”. It’s not new to Blender, but I wish I paid attention when I first started. It would save loads of questions, self-doubt, and anguish.

You may go on a node quest, seeking information from a wide variety of sources. However, none of those “videos”, tell you where to start.

These Blender “teachers”, start with complexity. I start with simplicity.

*You’ll hear some lectures are out of order, due to re-structure.

Thanks for your time.