The Secrets of Realistic Texturing in Blender

What people said

Strong rec paragbhtngr · 2016-05 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How do I make and apply a Normal Map?”

For making a normal map from diffuse textures, I would use CrazyBump. For an in-depth guide on texturing and using maps on models, here's a really good tutorial video: [this video]

Recommends Justin · 2014-07 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How can I make a surface look wet in cycles?”

Andrew Price has a good tutorial on this topic: [LINK] Also, here's another tutorial of his that might be helpful: [this video]

Recommends Unnamed Sentient Being · 2016-06 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How can I create spherical topology from a 2D image?”

To apply ALL the textures created from CrazyBump, I'd suggest following this tut: [this video] it's a little complicated but easy to get used to. To apply just a normal map, run the image through a normal map node and mix it with the orginal image.

Recommends DanielCMK · 2017-01 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “What order to texture a 3d object?”

I'm not very good at texturing myself, but there are a few good tutorials that might be able to help you. I recommend these few: [this video] , [LINK] , [LINK] and [LINK] (Yes, I know most of these are by Blender Guru.) Hope these tutorials help solve your problem!

Recommends MCunha · 2017-02 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Minimizing number of vertices in models for usage in games”

You might consider to learn no retopology (to lower your polycount). Afterwards, you bake your colour map, normal map, displacement map, etc from your high poly models to your low poly models. If you apply the kind of maps/textures to your low poly models, they will look high poly. See these 2 videos, so you understand better what i'm saying: [LINK] and [this video] and on baking: [LINK]

Cites Evelyn · 2016-03 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Texture stains - UV unwrapping”

I use Blender's guru Pro lightning(demo mode), and all the settings worked fine the whole time, until I've extruded a small part of the object..the material setup is the same as in this tutorial : [this video] I save blender's files every time I change a few things..I'll try to open an old one and repeat the steps and maybe it will look fine. I do click and type really fast, so maybe I accidentaly pressed a key when I was working, and it changed the texture..

Cites Dana · 2016-06 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Apply vector mapping to displace texture?”

I am using this method for my object texturing and displacement of my mesh. [this video] If you haven't seen this tutorial, the final node tree looks like this [LINK] In addition to this node tree, I am also using a Texture Coordinate node and a vector mapping node and have changed the values so my textures fit properly. The issue I am having is I can not figure out how to, or if it's possible, to also apply that same vector mapping to the displace texture. Any Ideas?

Cites AugLe · 2017-02 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Speedup animation cycles rendering”

I am using quite a lot of subdivision and sub-surface for different types of terrains (pebbles, concrete etc.) as well as particle systems (mainly for grass and leaves). The scene is large (around 20x20 to 30x30m that's why it becomes so bulky. I am not quite sure how much time consuming these subdivision and particles introduce (subsurface render is 3) but as I need the terrains to be as close to reality as possible (this tutorial [this video] ), isn't it the only choice. Not sure if I can omit the displacement and go safe with just pure material option?