Manipulate texture coordinates like a boss - Bartek Skorupa
Why Blender Stack Exchange recommends it
Blender Stack Exchange users link it whenever someone is confused about texture coordinates, Generated vs Object mapping, or why a procedural texture lands in the wrong place.
Recommended by 8 people across 21 different months, 2015 to 2023.
What it is
A nearly hour-long Blender Conference talk by Bartek Skorupa on how texture coordinates work in Blender's node system. It covers the Texture Coordinate and Mapping nodes, Generated versus Object coordinates, and how to transform and combine them for procedural texturing.
What people said
Strong rec gandalf3 · 2016-04 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to create procedural surface defects with Cycles?”
The simplest way is with a bump map. You can use a mixture of various procedural noise textures and a Bump node to create one quickly: [LINK] It's up to you to make come up with a texture that you like. I recommend this talk [this video] for some tips on generating realistic patterns with procedural textures. [LINK] This probably isn't necessary in your case, but if you want the bump mapping to affect the actual geometry you can use the Displacement output with Experimental Features enabled. See What is the difference between the displace socket and a bump map? [LINK]
Strong rec user1853 · 2016-09 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How can I get my texture correctly onto plane?”
I recommend that you learn how texture coordinates work. Bartek Skorupa has an amazing video on texturing: Manipulate texture coordinates like a boss [this video]
Strong rec user27640 · 2016-12 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Texture on box stretching on the vertical axis”
Basically, the Generated coordinates take the object to have equal size along all three axes, and textures get mapped to between 0 and 1, which can cause stretching or deflating. The Object coordinates take into consideration the object's actual size, and map textures according to that. With this texture [LINK] I get this with Generated [LINK] this with Object and Extension set to Repeat [LINK] and this with Object and Extension set to Clip [LINK] With Generated in this case Clip or Repeat doesn't make a difference, since the image gets stretched across the entire surface either way. The above examples I believe are the most relevant to your specific case, but for more in-depth explanations
Strong rec user27640 · 2017-02 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Cycles: Texturize a feather made from particle system?”
The Geometry node, which you're using, produces coordinates in world space, so the position, rotation and size of the object do affect the result. In a sense your texture is being projected, just as you suggest. Instead you should use the Texture Coordinate node. The Generated socket gives coordinates from (0, 0, 0) to (1, 1, 1) for the bounding box of the object, regardless of the object's size. The Object socket gives the coordinates in the object's local space. I replicated your node setup, but used the Texture Coordinate node instead, and I skipped the Mapping node. [LINK] This image is with Object coordinates. [LINK] And this is with Generated coordinates. [LINK] The Suzannes in the ima
Strong rec Timaroberts · 2017-02 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How do I get a better understanding of the coordinate system in blender?”
You might find this talk, Manipulate texture coordinates like a boss [this video] , by Bartek Skorupa to be very helpful. Extremely informative in any case.
Recommends TARDIS Maker · 2015-06 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to make custom bump maps”
A procedural texture is definitely a good idea if you can get it to work. If you haven't already, check out Bartek Scrupa's Blender Conference video on working with texture coordinates. [this video]
Recommends Dontwalk · 2016-05 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Purely Node Based Materials”
Here is a link that gandalf3 shared in an answer to a question I posted recently. I think you'll find it interesting. [this video]
Recommends user1853 · 2016-10 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Why is the texture sideways/diagonal?”
To learn about texture coordinates I suggest that you watch Bartek Skorupa's video: Manipulate texture coordinates like a boss [this video]
Recommends user27640 · 2017-03 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Stripes over 3D objects using ColorRamp”
If what you want is to scale the coordinates to a value between 0.0 through 1.0, try using _Generated_ coordniates instead of _Object_, and drop the _Modulo_ node. You may want to look at Manipulate texture coordinates like a boss [this video] by Bartek Skorupa. I'd also recommend reading, or at least skimming, Modular arithmetic [LINK] on Wikipedia, as it seems you're confused about what _Modulo_ actually does. This article talks about modulo for integers, but it can easily be extended to real numbers.
Recommends user1853 · 2017-10 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to make HDRI map more subtle?”
Blurring the HDR image used as environment, can be done by manipulating the texture coordinates: [LINK] Note that you might need to change the strength used for the environment. (for info on how this works please watch Bartel Skorupa's video Manipulate texture coordinates like a boss [this video] )