Learning The Node Editor

So this has kind of been bugging me for a while and I’m pretty sure this has been asked a million times before. I have been wondering where in the world people get the knowledge to use the Node Editor so well. I see all these videos showing all the ridiculous amounts of nodes they use just for one texture and really want to know where they get the knowledge to use it to that extent from. Youtube tutorials only really show you the basics, but I want more than just the basics. I want to get really serious with Blender and that’s just not enough for me. So to anyone with this knowledge if you can share that with me and what path I can take to really learning how to use the Node editor in the most advanced way possible. Thanks in advance.

To understand cycles material nodes see http://www.blenderdiplom.com/en/shop/576-the-cycles-encyclopedia.html

In a very real sense, when you use the Nodes Editor (in any of its numerous manifestations …), you are visually creating a computer-program … a “data flow diagram.” There are, basically, three kinds of nodes in each of these diagrams:

  • Inputs, which feed data into the system.
  • Outputs, which take data out.
  • Filters, which take data from their “input side” (on the left …), do something to it, and deliver it to their “output side” (on the right).

All nodes have “connectors” on their left and/or their right side, and these are color-coded according to the type of data they will accept. The connectors are “plugged together,” fairly arbitrarily, by “cables” (of a sort …), which must connect like colors, and which must connect an input to an output.

“And beyond that . . . your creativity takes over, Mister/Miss Computer-Programmer!” :stuck_out_tongue:

Like any other form of (visual …) computer programming, there are no restrictions on what you can attempt to do, as long as these basic rules are met. But, it is also true that you will have to, quite literally, debug(!) what you do. To take full advantage of this system, in a certain manner of speaking “you must ‘think like a computer programmer does.’” Blender won’t call your so-called “noodle” (slang term for a node network …) ‘right’ nor ‘wrong,’ and it’s up to you to construct a “noodle” that does what(ever it is that) you want to do.

When I used the word, “creativity,” however, I meant exactly what I said. With the Node Editor system, Blender really does give you an unprecedented creative tool. They handed you the means to tell Blender to do just-about anything, then they said, “good luck!” :slight_smile: