Lesson 1Practical recipes for common interior materials: painted walls, hardwood floors, wool/linen upholstery, leather, polished wood, chrome/brushed steel, glazed ceramicsCreate useful material setups for everyday inside items. Follow easy steps for painted walls, wooden floors, cloths, leather, shiny wood, metals, and pottery, making sure they look right under different lights.
Painted wall and plaster materialsHardwood floor colour and shine controlWool and linen fabric roughness setupLeather shine, wear, and age marksChrome, brushed steel, and ceramicsLesson 2Understanding and selecting base colour, roughness, metalness, specular and IOR values with real-world referencesGet good at the main PBR settings and how they match real things. Learn to pick base colour, roughness, metalness, specular, and IOR numbers using real measurements, charts, and comparing to actual materials.
Base colour ranges for common materialsRoughness values and surface shineMetalness vs specular workflowsUsing IOR tables and presetsMatching references through iterationLesson 3Advanced maps: anisotropy, sheen, translucency and when to use them for upholstery, brushed metal, glass and ceramicsFind out when and how to use special shading maps for tricky surfaces. Look at anisotropy for brushed metals, sheen for cloths, and translucency for thin things like curtains, frosted glass, and pottery coatings.
Anisotropy for brushed and machined metalsSheen layers for cloth and upholsteryTranslucency for thin surfacesControlling directionality and flowPerformance impact of advanced lobesLesson 4Photographic reference measurement: sampling real materials for colour, roughness, and specular valuesLearn how to capture real materials with photos and simple tools. Get how to sample colour, roughness, and specular values properly and turn them into good PBR inputs for your shaders.
Lighting setups for reference photosNeutral colour calibration and grey cardsSampling base colour from photographsEstimating roughness from highlightsDeriving specular and reflectance valuesLesson 5Creating layered materials: diffuse+coating, clearcoat, subsurface scattering for fabrics and skin-like materialsMake layered materials that mix different light scattering parts. Learn to build diffuse plus coating layers, clearcoat varnish, and subsurface scattering for cloths and skin-like things while keeping it real.
Diffuse base with reflective coatingClearcoat for varnish and car paintSubsurface scattering for skin-like mediaFabric fuzz and thin-layer behaviourManaging energy across layered lobesLesson 6Creating believable glass and liquids: IOR, absorption, caustics handling, thickness and refraction tintingMake convincing glass and liquids with real-based settings. Understand IOR, absorption, and thickness, and how they change refraction, colour, and light patterns. Learn engine tips to keep renders steady and quick.
IOR choices for glass and common liquidsAbsorption distance and colour falloffModelling thickness for correct refractionHandling caustics and firefliesFrosted, dirty, and imperfect glassLesson 7Texturing workflows: tileable vs unique UVs, scale management, trim sheets and micro-detailLearn how different texturing ways affect real look, reuse, and speed. Compare repeating and one-off UV setups, keep scale the same, and use trim sheets and tiny detail maps to add depth without using too much memory.
Tileable textures vs unique UV layoutsConsistent texel density and scaleTrim sheet planning for hard-surface assetsMicro-detail maps for added realismAvoiding visible seams and repetitionLesson 8Principles of physically based rendering (energy conservation, Fresnel, microfacet models)Study the real rules behind PBR shading. Look at energy saving, Fresnel shine, and tiny surface theory, and see how these ideas help pick settings and explain how modern light models work.
Energy conservation in shading modelsFresnel reflectance and viewing angleMicrofacet distribution and roughnessBRDF components and lobe structureCommon PBR model limitationsLesson 9Material optimisation for render engines: balancing fidelity with memory and render time (texture sizes, UDIMs, proxy maps)Optimise materials for real work without losing important details. Learn to pick texture sizes, use UDIMs smartly, and make simple or packed maps that cut memory use and speed up testing and final renders.
Choosing efficient texture resolutionsUDIM layout and when to use itProxy maps for lookdev and previewsChannel packing to save memoryBalancing quality with render timeLesson 10Using and authoring texture maps: albedo/diffuse, roughness, metallic, normal, height/displacement, ambient occlusion, curvature/ao bakerLook at the key texture maps in PBR shading and how they work together. Learn right use of albedo, roughness, metallic, normal, height, ambient occlusion, and curvature maps, plus baking ways to make extra detail maps.
Albedo vs diffuse and colour hygieneRoughness and metallic map authoringNormal vs height and displacement useAmbient occlusion and curvature bakingChannel packing and map compression
