Introduction to Anisotropic Shading in Blender
Why Blender Stack Exchange recommends it
Blender Stack Exchange users link it as a go-to reference for anisotropic materials, both as a suggestion for metal surfaces and as the tutorial they were following when they asked about their own results.
Recommended by 1 people across 1 different months, 2016 to 2020.
What it is
A Blender Guru tutorial from 2012 that explains what anisotropy is in shading, when to use it, and how to apply the Cycles anisotropic shader to build a realistic saucepan with brushed-metal highlights. It is a hands-on walkthrough inside Blender.
What people said
Recommends Gliderman · 2016-08 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Blender Cycles Procedural Cut Aluminum (Cut Aluminium)”
Sounds like normal maps would be handy. I think Blender has a built in way to do it, but I haven't used it. There is a normal map plugin for GIMP (that is Windows only), which I have used though, and that gives you the photo powers of GIMP. Perhaps a tutorial from Blender Guru [this video] covers what you are looking for?
Cites Baymax Lim · 2018-12 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Anistropic shader: mine doesn't converge at centre”
When I used Anistropic shader, my highlights do not converge at the centre as opposed to Blender Guru's example. Why is that so? Thank you. link to tutorial [this video] [LINK] [LINK]
Cites Bersaelor · 2020-09 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Anisotropic shader not working with new file”
so I tried following this (somewhat dated) tutorial [this video] to create an anisotropic material. Unfortunately no matter what I do, the objects don't look anisotropic at all. Here's my attempt at following the tutorial: [LINK] Even if I just open a plain new file, add a geometry, an HDR map as the background and set the Anisotropic shader, it doesnt work: [LINK] The only way I could see any anisotropy, was by downloading the example blender file from the docs [LINK] . What could be missing from a plain new file, that the example file has? The cycles nodes look exactly the same.