The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

Tangent

Basically, the Tangent controls what axis is used to skew

the reflections. Use the Tangent node to choose which
direction to use.

Anisotropy with tangents: radial Z, radial Y, UV

12 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

What it does: Behaves like real glass, bending

and reflecting light as it hits the surface according to the
IOR (Index of Refraction).

Use it for: Glass, water or any other reflective, light

bending materials like gemstones.

13 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

Distribution Function

Again, these functions just control which algorithm is used

to calculate the appearance of rough reflections and
refractions, although this time the Ashikhmin-Shirley option
is not available.

14 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

Roughness

Simulates tiny bumps and scratches on the surface, which

can create the appearance of frosted/sand-blasted glass.

Glass Roughness: 0 vs 0.2

IOR

The Index of Refraction controls by how much the light is

bent as it passes through this surface, as well as how

15 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

visible the reflections are.

You can find severallists of IOR values for different

materials on the internet, and most of them are slightly
different because the IOR actually changes based on how
hot the material is, but to get you started:

Water: 1.33

Glass: 1.5

Diamond: 2.4

16 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

What it does: Behaves exactly the same way as the Glass

shader, except without the reflection component.

Use it for: Special cases where you need to refract light,

but not reflect. Like heat distortion and black holes.

17 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

18 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

What it does: Completely transparent when white, tinted

when colored.

Use it for: Combining with other materials to create

transparent parts of the material.

19 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

By itself it's invisible and fairly useless - but when combined

with an alpha masked image, it can be used to give the
appearance of complex objects like leaves or hair.

20 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

What it does: Let's light pass through it.

Use it for: Thin objects like grass or paper. Combine with

other shaders like diffuse, for a more realistic effect.

21 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia — Blender Guru about:reader?url=https://www.blenderguru.com...

This one confused me for a really long time, but that was
until I realized it's not meant to be used on its own, it's
meant to be combined with other shaders to allow light to
pass through them.

Notice how the plane lights up only when the light is

pointing at it from behind? That's how the translucent
shader behaves by itself.

What's really important here is the number of light bounces.

Once the light gets inside the mesh, and we allow it to
bounce around inside, some of that light will then come
back out through the surface and light up the front faces:

22 of 65 1/8/18, 6:31 PM