How to apply textures in Blender 4.0 For newbies (´。• ᵕ •。) ♡
So you imported your lovely doll into Blender 4.0, but the textures are messed or missing, here's how to apply base simple textures from the scratch!
I'm using Blender 4.0.2 (Sorry 4.3, but your EEVEE is currently nothing but tears for me) and my lovely Aidan is here to assist me. SO! Seat your bum comfortable and let's begin!
1 - Split your working space by pulling the corner of the screen:
2 - Then click on Material with your mesh selected.
3 - Pick Shader Editor on the left part of the screen and hit New in the Material on the right. You'll get something like this:
4 - On the left choose Add - Texture - Image Texture. We need three of them at very least :D
5 - First Image texture: Connect Color to the Base Color and Alpha to Alpha. Second Image texture connect to Specular IOR Level. Don't forget to upload your textures! Color - is well... color pics. Specular looks like Black/White pics and Normal is purple!
6 - Now add Normal Map. And connect it like on the picture below:
7 - Specular and Normal maps should be NON - COLOR in the Image Texture - Color Space
8 - Turn on the alpha. In Material - Settings - Blend Mode/Shadow Mode change on Alpha Hashed + You can check Backface Culling. In some cases it's vital :D
9 - Change the Specular settings in case of weird shining by changing IOR and Roughness parameters.
How I do my lighting in EEVEE for Blender 4.0 (´。• ᵕ •。) ♡
Are you running your Blender on a toaster? Don't wanna spend much time on rendering in Cycles? Here's some EEVEE tips for you!
1 - Let's put some HDR lighting on! Go to the Worlds, choose Use Notes and hit that little yellow dot next to the Color.
2 - Pick 'Environment Textures'
3 - You'll see everything in purple. But worry not! It's just bc you haven't applied any textures yet! Just go on and hit Open.
4 - You can find plenty of free, high resolution HDRI textures on Poly Haven. I have almost all of them! Go get some for yourself too and navigate to their location. Pick any you like!
Well... It doesn't look good yet :D
5 - Lower the Strength of the light.
6 - Now. Let's go to the Render Properties and check Ambient Occlusion and Bloom (you can play with it's parameters and see which fits you better). THEN... Go to Shadows and increase the resolution to the max. High Bit Depth and Soft Shadows must be checked too!
7 - Let's Add our very first light (The Sun)! And go to the Camera Mode.
8 - In the Sun Shadow settings: Soften the light by increasing the Angle; Lower Bias to the max.
9 - Change the parameters of Cascade Shadow Map the way it looks better for you.
10 - Also don't forget to fix the specular appearance of your model ;3
Now. I don't hate it. But I don't like it much either... So I played and tried several Environment textures for better result.
11 - Looks way better! Now let's go to the Render Properties once again and remove the background in the Film category (in case you don't want one)
12 - It's time to add another light source!
13 - Settings for the new light are quite similar. I made them softer, lowered Bias, changed color, etc.