DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11225.01121/1 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324922895_BLENDER_CYCLES-CREATING_HUMAN_CHARACTER_HOLOGRAM_MATERIAL-TUTORIAL

1. BLENDER CYCLES – CREATING HUMAN
CHARACTER + HOLOGRAM MATERIAL -
TUTORIAL
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Eng. Tihomir Dovramadjiev
Technical University of Varna
MTF, Department Industrial Design
tihomir.dovramadjiev@tu-varna.bg
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11225.01121/1
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324922895_BLENDER_CYCLE
S-CREATING_HUMAN_CHARACTER_HOLOGRAM_MATERIAL-
TUTORIAL

2. 2018 DrTAD 2
Blender software – download
& license
Blender.org: “Open Source 3D creation.
Free to use for any purpose, forever.”
Blender software download:
https://www.blender.org/download/
Blender software license:
Free to use Blender for any purpose, including commercially or for
education. This freedom is being defined by Blender’s GNU General
Public License (GPL).
https://www.blender.org/about/

3. 2018 DrTAD 3
Blender Cycles Renderer »
Materials » Surfaces
Surfaces:
● The surface shader defines the light interaction
at the surface of the mesh. One or more
BSDF’s specify if incoming light is reflected
back, refracted into the mesh, or absorbed.
Emission defines how light is emitted from the
surface, allowing any surface to become a light
source.

4. 2018 DrTAD 4
Blender Cycles Renderer »
Materials » Surfaces
●
Terminology:
● BSDF
Stands for Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function. It
defines how light is reflected and refracted at a surface.
● Reflection
BSDFs reflect an incoming ray on the same side of the
surface.
● Transmission
BSDFs transmit an incoming ray through the surface,
leaving on the other side.
● Refraction
BSDFs are a type of Transmission, transmitting an incoming
ray and changing its direction as it exits on the other side of
the surface.

5. 2018 DrTAD 5
Blender Cycles Renderer »
Materials » Surfaces
BSDF Parameters
A major difference from non-physically-based renderers is that direct light
reflection from lamps and indirect light reflection of other surfaces are not
decoupled, but rather handled using a single BSDF. This limits the
possibilities a bit, but we believe overall it is helpful in creating consistent-
looking renders with fewer parameters to tune.
● Roughness
For the glossy BSDFs, the roughness parameter controls the sharpness of
the reflection, from 0.0 (perfectly sharp) to 1.0 (very soft). Compared to
hardness or exponent parameters, it has the advantage of being in the
range 0.0 to 1.0, and as a result gives more linear control and is more
easily textureable. The relation is roughly: roughness = 1 - 1/hardness

6. 2018 DrTAD 6
Blender Cycles Mix Shader
Node
The Mix node is used to mix two shaders together. Mixing can be used for
material layering, where the Factor input may, for example, be connected
to a Blend Weight node.
Inputs
Shader
Shaders to mix, such that incoming rays hit either
with the specified probability in the Factor socket.
Factor
Blend weight to use for mixing two shaders;
at zero it uses the first shader entirely and at one
the second shader.
Properties
This node has no properties.
Outputs
Shader: Standard shader output.

7. 2018 DrTAD 7
Blender Cycles Layer Weight
Node
The Layer Weight node outputs a weight typically used for layering shaders
with the Mix Shader node.
● Inputs
Blend
Bias the output towards all 0 or all 1.
Useful for uneven mixing of shaders.
Normal
Input meant for plugging in bump or normal
maps which will affect the output.
● Properties
This node has no properties.
Outputs
Fresnel
Dielectric Fresnel weight, useful for example for layering diffuse and glossy
shaders to create a plastic material. This is like the Fresnel node, except that
the input of this node is in the often more convenient 0.0 to 1.0 range.
Facing
Weight that blends from the first to the second shader as the surface goes
from facing the viewer to viewing it at a grazing angle.

8. 2018 DrTAD 8
Manuel Bastioni Laboratory
in Blender software
Fig. 1. Manuel Bastioni Lab (Characters). Download:
http://www.manuelbastioni.com/download.php

9. 2018 DrTAD 9
Manuel Bastioni Laboratory
License of the Code
LICENSE OF THE CODE
http://www.manuelbastioni.com/guide_license.php
All files written in Python® released in the ManuelbastioniLAB package,
are released under GNU General Public License 3.
ManuelbastioniLAB - Copyright © 2015-2018 Manuel Bastioni
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option)
any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See
the GNU General Public License for more details:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

10. 2018 DrTAD 10
Manuel Bastioni Laboratory
License of the Database
LICENSE OF THE DATABASE
All data files released in the ManuelbastioniLAB package, including all the
meshes and data contained in .blend files or in any other 3d file format (for
example .obj and .mtl), all the images and all the json files are released
under GNU Affero General Public License 3.
ManuelbastioniLAB - Copyright © 2015-2018 Manuel Bastioni
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See
the GNU Affero General Public License for more details:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html

11. 2018 DrTAD 11
Manuel Bastioni Laboratory
License of Models generated
by the software
LICENSE OF MODELS GENERATED BY THE SOFTWARE
The AGPL can be an obstacle in case someone wants to create a closed
source game or closed source 3D models using 3D characters made with
the lab because the AGPL will propagate from the base models and from
the database to the output models.
For this reason it was decided to consent a double license ONLY for the
models generated by the official software*, NOT for the source code, NOT
for the json database and NOT for blend files included in the distribution:
The default license for models generated by the software is AGPL 3:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html. As derived product of the AGPL'd
database, the models must be distribuited under AGPL 3, with the same
copyright of the database.
Alternatively, for closed source games or closed source 3D models, it's
possible to choose, for characters generated by the official* software, the
Attribution 4.0 International, giving to Manuel Bastioni the credit as
required by that license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

12. 2018 DrTAD 12
Manuel Bastioni Laboratory
Note about 2D Rendering
NOTE ABOUT 2D RENDERING
Rendered two-dimensional images or two-dimensional videos of a scene
that includes 3D models generated with Manuel Bastioni Lab are not
considered a derived product of the licensed 3D database and 3D base
models.
Due to many factors (i.e. the transformation from 3D space to 2D space,
the position and the type of camera used, the other 3D elements included
in the scene, the position and type of lights, the post production, the
composition of multiple characters, the path of the camera, ecc.) the
original 3D data is fundamentally modified and transformed sufficiently
that it constitutes an original work.
For this reason, the author of the 2D rendering is the sole copyright owner
of 2D image/video created by him and the sole responsible for the use of
his 2D image/video.

13. 2018 DrTAD 13
Blender Cycles – Add Human
Character
Fig. 2. Add Human Character with Init Character

14. 2018 DrTAD 14
Blender Cycles – Default man
character parameters
●
Fig. 3.Default parameters: Age: 33 y., Mass: 50%, Tone 50%

15. 2018 DrTAD 15
Blender Cycles – Man
character parameters / new
Fig. 4. Man character parameters / new. Age: 30 y, Mass: 15%, Tone:
100%. Characters library: Types: type_extreme_bodybuilder, Phenotype:
east_european.

16. 2018 DrTAD 16
Blender Cycles – Working
with Model. Selecting
Fig. 5. Working with Model: Select m_ca01

17. 2018 DrTAD 17
Blender Cycles – Node Editor
Fig. 6. Activating Node Editor

18. 2018 DrTAD 18
Blender Cycles – Working
with Nodes
Fig. 7. Adding “Material Output” Node. Add > Output > Material Output >
Material Output Node

19. 2018 DrTAD 19
Blender Cycles – Working
with Nodes
Fig. 8. Adding “Transparent BSDF” Node. Add > Shader > Transparent
BSDF > Transparent BSDF Node

20. 2018 DrTAD 20
Blender Cycles – Working
with Nodes
Fig. 9. Adding “Emission” Node. Add > Shader > Emission > Emission
Node

21. 2018 DrTAD 21
Blender Cycles – Working
with Nodes
Fig. 10. Adding “Mix Shader” Node. Add > Shader > Mix Shader > Mix
Shader

22. 2018 DrTAD 22
Blender Cycles –
Configuration of Nodes
Fig. 11. Configuration of Nodes. Transparent BSDF to Mix Shader,
Emission to Mix Shader, Mix Shader to Material Output / Surface

23. 2018 DrTAD 23
Blender Cycles – Adding
Hologram Material
Fig. 12. Adding light blue color (manual)

24. 2018 DrTAD 24
Blender Cycles – Adding
color to cloth
Fig. 13. Adding blue color to cloth

25. 2018 DrTAD 25
Blender Cycles – First Render
(test)
Fig. 14. First render (test; black background)

26. 2018 DrTAD 26
Blender Cycles – Selecting
Figure
Fig. 15. Selecting figure: Mblab_human_eyes.

27. 2018 DrTAD 27
Blender Cycles – Working
with Nodes
Fig. 16. Adding “Layer Weight” Node. Add > Input > Layer Weight > Layer
Weight Node

28. 2018 DrTAD 28
Blender Cycles – Working
with Layer Weight Node
Fig. 17. Working with “Layer Wight” Node: Connecting Layer Weight
Node / Facing to Mix Shader / Fac

29. 2018 DrTAD 29
Blender Cycles – Render Test
Fig. 18. Render Test

30. 2018 DrTAD 30
Blender Cycles – Result /
Saved PNG file
Fig. 19. Result / Saved PNG file

31. 2018 DrTAD 31
Blender Cycles – Improving
Hologram Material – Variant 2
Fig. 20. Modifying the definition of the hologram material. “Layer Weight”
Node / Blend: 0.25, “Emission” Node / Strength: 2.2

32. 2018 DrTAD 32
Blender Cycles – Improving
Hologram Material – Variant 2
Fig. 21. Modifying the definition of the hologram material. “Layer Weight”
Node / Blend: 0.2, “Emission” Node / Strength: 3

33. 2018 DrTAD 33
Blender Cycles – Final Result
Fig. 22. Final Result

34. 2018 DrTAD 34
Resources
Blender software
https://www.blender.org/
Cycles Renderer » Materials » Surfaces
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/materials/surface.
html#surfaces
Mix Shader Node
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/nodes/types/shad
ers/mix.html
Layer Weight Node
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/nodes/types/input/
layer_weight.htm
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOUWVGNhcHEICE8AjR8up3g
Manuel Bastioni Laboratory
http://www.manuelbastioni.com/index.php
●