Level 2

Question 1

What are the ‘specs’ of a sprinkle sphere?

Answer 1

1mm x 6 rings x 12 segments

Question 2

How do you flatten the ends of the sprinkle?

Answer 2

z to select z axis and then scale.

Question 3

what feature do you use to generate loads of sprinkles from the one? (referencing one object and then duplicating it over the top of a surface of another object).

Answer 3

particle instances

Question 4

how do you use particle instances to duplicate the sprinkles?

Answer 4

particle tab/+ button/hair/render as:object/instance object eyedropper: click reference object

Question 5

What’s the difference between emitter and hair particles/

Answer 5

emitter are animated, hair are static.

Question 6

how do you create random rotations for the sprinkles?

Answer 6

tick the ‘advanced’ tab in the particle instances menu, then check rotation, then set orientation axis to ‘normal’. then set randomise phase to something and a tiny little bit of randomise.

Question 7

how do you access the weight paint mode?

Answer 7

control + tab to bring up wheel, then select it from there.

Question 8

what do the colours mean on the weight paint mode?

Answer 8

blue = 0, red = 1, other colours = values inbetween.

Question 9

how do you stop the sprinkles from slowing down weight paint mode?

Answer 9

click the little monitor next to the camera icon in the particle settings pane thing.

Question 10

how do you control where the sprinkles land on the doughnut?

Answer 10

use weight paint mode.

Question 11

how do you go back to object mode when you’re finished with weight paint mode?

Answer 11

control + tab, select object mode.

Question 12

how do you tell the particle system to use the weight painting you’ve done?

Answer 12

Select that particular particle instance reference in the particle properties tab, then vertex groups > density > group.

a weight paint is essentially grouping vertices together, hence ‘vertex group’.

Question 13

where will you find your weight painting after you’ve started to paint it?

Answer 13

object data properties pane (green triangle) then you can see ‘group’ under ‘vertex groups’. Delete it if you want and add a new one to create a new weight paint map.

Question 14

What’s the best way to make randomised colours on the sprinkles?

Answer 14

mess around with the material nodes.

Question 15

how do you randomise the sprinkle colours with material nodes? (Stage 1 - black and white sprinkles)

(2/2/1:30)

Answer 15

top bar > shading, select the original sprinkle (the original reference for the particle instances) on the top right main pane thing, shift + a to add a node, input > object info, random node bit to base colour node bit.

always make sure the object you’re applying material nodes to ACTUALLY has a material applied.

Question 16

What’s the difference between the nodes screen and the and the standard settings pane to the right?

Answer 16

they have the same settings, but the nodes screen is more advanced.

Question 17

what can you insert into the material node?

Answer 17

anything, you can even insert images.

Question 18

what do nodes basically do?

Answer 18

allow you to reverence values for different things in other places

Question 19

how do you randomise the sprinkle colours with material nodes? (Stage 2 - changing black and white sprinkles to multicoloured sprinkles)

(2/2/5:00)

Answer 19

shift + a > converter > colour ramp, +, click fac colour, choose colour, adjust that slider point on slider, again +, click fac colour, choose colour, adjust that slider point on slider, repeat a few more times. Change gradient type from linear to constant, otherwise it’ll choose all of the colours in between those colours too.

As an aside, you can then change the roughness of the sprinkles in the Principled BSDF node to whatever you like.

Question 20

Why didn’t weight painting work when I tried to do it on a flat plane?

Answer 20

There were no vertices on the plane to paint onto. After I subdivided the plane, it worked.

Question 21

What’s a good way to find objects you’ve ‘lost’ (inexplicably vanished from the viewport)?

Answer 21

Select the object in the top right pane, then press /

Question 22

Why did I have problems with the zoom getting stuck before getting anywhere near the object?

Answer 22

The zoom has a limited range (in the same way a camera’s zoom lens does). I’d started from miles away. When I selected the object and pressed / to get the camera to look at at, then started from there, it was fine.

Question 23

How do you set the origin to the middle of an object?

Answer 23

Right click the object, click on set origin, then set origin to geometry.

Question 24

How do you change that particular random sprinkle pattern?

Answer 24

Change the seed value in the emission tab. It’s literally just re-generating them from the same data.

Question 25

How can you change the ratio that objects in a collection are referenced for particles?

Answer 25

Use count.

Question 26

What enjoyable activity can you perform in input boxes?

Answer 26

Maths.

Question 27

What does a purple/pink object usually mean?

Answer 27

That it’s missing a texture (looking for a material that it can’t find)

Question 28

How do you reference a texture painting for an object’s material?

Answer 28

Shading tab > new node > texture > image texture > colour goes to base colour * > select the texture you just created in the texture painting mode.

• on the whole, colour info is connected to colour info in the compositors.

Question 29

what do you need to remember to do when doing texture painting?

Answer 29

save the image while you’re working. It’s saved separately to the blender file, and referenced.

Question 30

how do you bring up the texture painting panel?

Answer 30

the ‘N’ key.

Question 31

In texture painting mode, what’s the hotkey to flip between the two colours in your pallet?

Answer 31

X

Question 32

How do you add a brush when texture painting?

Answer 32

Texture mask in the N-menu.

Don’t use ‘texture’ - it’ll just use the colour of the texture that you put in there.

Question 33

What’s the most common type of procedural texture in Blender?

Answer 33

clouds.

Question 34

How do you add a new texture mask when texture painting?

Answer 34

In the N-menu on the left portion of the screen, click texture mask and then ‘New’.

On the panel on the right side of the screen, texture properties tab at the bottom, then brush mask, new, then choose anything you like from the ‘image or movie’ dropdown.

Question 35

How do you randomise the texture brush rather than have it tile?

Answer 35

Change it from ‘tile’ to ‘random’ under ‘mask mapping’.

Question 36

How do you add more detail to the rest of the doughnut?

Answer 36

Blend mode: overlay in the brush settings, black brush.

Question 37

How would you paint on roughness?

Answer 37

Do a texture painting and plug it into the roughness value of the object in the shading compositor.

Question 38

What is LookDev mode?

Answer 38

using the Evee engine to preview your materials. Uses a template light, means you don’t have to set anything up to quickly see what things are looking like. (globe with the slice taken out).

Question 39

What’s the included-in-blender add-on for previewing what’s going on in different nodes in the shading compositor, and how do you use it? (2/4/5:00)

Answer 39

Node Wrangler. Control + Shift + Click the node you want to take a look at.

Question 40

What nodes do you use in the shading compositor to do the doughnut procedural displacement? (First stage)

Answer 40

Texture Coordinate* (Object) >
(Vector) Noise Texture (Fac) >
(Height) Displacement (Displacement) >
(Displacement) Material Output (this is an existing node)

*this makes sure the texture wraps properly around the object - not stretched or anything.

Question 41

How do you change the displacement bump from fake bump to real bump (actually changing the shape of the mesh)? (2/4/6:26)

Answer 41

Material > SETTINGS* > Displacement > Displacement and Bump

• NOT the displacement tab

Question 42

What’s another factor that affects the displacement of the doughnut, apart from setting the scale on the ‘noise texture’ and ‘displacement’ nodes? (around 2/4/8:00)

Answer 42

The number of vertices in the mesh. If you want to add more detail, or less spikes, add another subsurf modifier.

Question 43

On the RGB mix node, which value does the Fac apply to (colour 1 or 2)?

Answer 43

Colour 2

Question 44

What can you do if you want to tone down the white bit of the texture map without actually repainting the texture?

Answer 44

Add another RGB mix and mix in a standard bread colour (with overlay? I can’t remember).

Question 45

What nodes do you use in the shading compositor to do the doughnut procedural displacement? (Second stage - big bumps mixed with small bumps)

Answer 45

Add another noise texture (this one with a different scale value) +

Mix the two noise textures with a RGB mixer (one with higher scale number one goes in the bottom, so you can control it with the Fac dial) +

You can use a colour ramp on on the larger one to control the frequency of smaller vs bigger bumps on that particular map. (colour output from colour ramp) (talks about this last bit at 2/5/3:40).

Question 46

How do you apply the bump map to the colour (to get kinda overcooked bits)?

Answer 46

Add an RBG mix, the bump goes to the Fac input and the other texture image goes to colour one, then that goes into the base colour as usual. Set the mode to overlay.

Question 47

What node is used a lot and is great for tweaking values?

Answer 47

Colour ramp. I think it’s kinda like editing the curves in photographs.

Question 48

How do you stop objects from appearing in a render?

Answer 48

Click on the filter in the top right menu (the funnel picture), and add that as a selectable point.

Question 49

How do you stop the emitter of particles from being seen?

Answer 49

Unclick the ‘show emitter’ check box in the particle/ render/ settings

Question 50

What other things can you tweak to get the doughnut to look more realistic?

Answer 50

The size, mixture, and scatter of the sprinkles (add holes in the weight map), the subsurface scatter value of the icing (says he’s still not totally sure about that).