Original subtitles

Now we are going to finish by adding a background and finishing some of the other materials.

So let's get right to it and I will press Shift-A and add a plane as usual.

Now let's tab in and scale this 10 times so it's quite large.

Press S, 10 and confirm.

And right now I want to extend this edge in the back.

We are going to create something called infinite background.

So I will press 2 for edge select, select the far edge and press E then Z

so the blender knows we are going up and 15.

Okay, let's confirm and now I will select this edge and I want to bevel it

so when the light hits that background it doesn't create any hard edge.

So that's the principle of the infinite background.

Now let's look from the front by pressing 1 on the numpad

because I want to see how high up I can go with the bevel.

So I will press Ctrl-B and start beveling here

and we can add some segments with the mouse wheel

and I want to do this as high as the character itself.

So something like this. We can confirm but don't click anywhere yet.

I want to modify the segments to something like 15 here.

So let's modify that and now if we rotate this,

now we can tab out, right-click and shade smooth.

Let's rename the plane to background right here

and we can give it a material right away.

Let me push this down a little bit.

So let's switch to the material tab, create a new material.

Let's call this BG for background and I've prepared a color palette for you.

So either you can try to eyeball those colors to try to match what you can see

or come up with your own colors or if you want the same result

you can see on the render here, you can use the palette I provide.

You can find a link to download it under the video

and right now, same as before with the references,

we can just click to open and load up our palette file.

We can zoom it out a little bit

and this is a nice trick where you can just sample the colors from some image you have loaded.

So down here, you can see there are some colors for lights.

So we'll leave those for now and just focus on the material colors.

So for the background, we want that green color.

So let's just click the eyedropper tool and pick the color from there

and we can hold Z and switch to the material preview

and I want to adjust the roughness of this material all the way to 1

so it's not that glossy and now I want to create the material for the wisp.

So let's select the wisp and we can switch to the shading workspace

because I need a node editor for that.

We lost our palette there, but don't worry.

There is another image editor right here.

So we can just click this little icon and select already loaded file palette JPEG here.

So we have the same colors and for the wisp there are two colors here

and first of all, we'll need to get rid of that principled shader

because this will be a custom shader made primarily from emission,

but we want to keep this texture here.

So just click the shader here and press CTRL X to delete it.

You will see there's no shading going on on the wisp there

and this will be a little bit more advanced shader setup.

So please bear with me here.

So first of all, we have this texture which has the dots for eyes

and I want to use that to mask the eyes.

So let's press SHIFT A.

Let's go to color and mix RGB node

and we want the white color here at the top

and this bluish color from the palette here.

So let's pick it up

and we can connect the color from our texture to the factor here.

And if you want to preview the node,

you can press CTRL SHIFT left-click if you have the node wrangler active.

So this way we just painted some black eyes

and we can easily use the texture to mask out some colors here

and I want to further connect this to emission shader.

So let's press SHIFT A, go to the shader menu and add emission shader.

And I will connect the color there and let's set the strength to 2

so it's not really too much of a strong emission,

but it's not only one and let's preview this.

So CTRL SHIFT click here and nothing much changed.

This is just a little bit brighter right now.

And now I want to create these like glowing edges around these little characters

and there's node very useful for that and we can use the Fresnel node.

So let's press SHIFT A, go to the input and there are a lot of interesting nodes here.

Let's pick up the Fresnel and we can preview this with CTRL SHIFT click

and you will see this gradient that happens here.

And when you rotate around the object,

you can see that it always highlights edges that are at a steep angle towards the camera.

So that's very useful for an effect like this

and we can make it even stronger by using color ramp here.

So press SHIFT A, add a converter, color ramp

and we can now drag the black color here.

So it's a little bit stronger effect and a little bit white too.

So we have a really strong edge light going around these little characters

and you can see it really depends on the angle of the camera.

So that's what we want here and let's add a new emission shader here.

So SHIFT A, shader emission, but be careful not to drop it on the line here.

So like this and let's set the color to this green, lime green color.

And now we'll just need to mix those two shaders with a mix shader.

So press SHIFT A, shader and we'll add the mix shader and connect those here

and we'll use the output from the color ramp as a factor to mix those.

And let's press CTRL SHIFT click here and we'll need to invert this.

So plug it like that and you can see we have that glowing edge,

but we'll need a little bit more glow there.

So add like 50 emission strength.

And right now we can try to further adjust the strength of this.

So I would probably leave the white somewhere here

and maybe make this a little bit sharper like that.

Okay, looking good so far.

So this is our custom material for the Wisp

with just some mix shader node and mix color node

and we are using bunch of masks.

One mask is painted and one mask is procedural based on the Fresnel input.

So these are just simple tricks that you can use in your custom shaders as well.

We can now switch back to the layout view.

So we better see the viewport here

and we can apply rest of the materials to some of the objects

like the leather parts on the character and the branches and stuff like that.

So let's do the leather parts first.

I will select this one here and the new material.

Let's call this leather

and let's pick up the first leather color from the palette here

and I want to bring up a roughness a little bit to something like 0.7.

So it's not so glossy and then I want to apply this to the boots as well.

So let's select the body go into the edit mode

and right here let me isolate this with the slash key.

We can go to the face select drag selection around those faces

and use control plus to expand the selection all the way up until that seam you can see right there

and here we can add a new texture slot

and we can choose the leather from the list and click assign.

But since this is not longer in the mirror mode,

we need to do this for the other leg as well.

So once again, just use control plus to expand the selection and assign there as well.

We can tab out and exit the local view

and now I want a little bit darker leather parts.

So let's select one of these objects

and we can choose the leather here since it's already named and just duplicate this.

So this will be called leather 001 or we can rename this to leather 2

and now click the color use the eyedropper tool and pick the darker color

and here I want to go to back to 0.5 with the roughness since this is a little bit darker color.

So some of these reflections might actually be useful there.

Now I will apply the same material to the belt

and let's select the talisman here and apply the same.

Of course right now we'll need to go into the edit mode

and assign some new materials to the talisman.

But before we do let's do the branches.

So we are done with most of the objects.

So let's select the body once again go into the edit mode.

Let's press A twice to the select all

and by hovering over those branches will just press L to select the linked parts

and right now with all those selected let's do the same on the other side like this.

Let's create a new material slot with the new material.

Let's call this branches.

Let's pick up a color from the palette and click assign.

And again here I want to bring the roughness a little bit.

So 0.7 for this material let's tab out.

So that's for the branches.

Right now let's go back to the talisman so we can select it

and press period on the numpad to focus.

Let's go into the edit mode and we can enter local view

and right now let's click away hover over the talisman

and press L to select the linked parts.

And now we'll create the bronze material.

So create a new material slot here new material and let's call this bronze

and we'll pick up the color from the palette as well.

So click the color and pick up the bronze color right now.

Let's click assign and we'll need to adjust this a little bit.

So we want to go full metallic on this one and leave the roughness 0.5.

So we have some nice matte reflections.

And now for the crystal we can go to the vertex select toggle the X-ray

select all of these vertices down here and just press control plus.

So we select these up there as well.

Now toggle the X-ray back and let's create a new material slot.

Let's call this crystal and we'll pick up the red color from the palette

and click assign.

So right now we have all the materials assigned we can tab out

and exit the local view by pressing slash

but we are not done with the talisman crystal material.

I want to add some subsurface scattering there and some transmission.

So it looks like light goes through a little bit

then it gets absorbed and stuff like that.

So first of all, we can pick the subsurface color.

You can see it right here.

Use the eyedropper tool and pick up a little bit like a more orange red color.

So what that will do this will basically allow the light to be absorbed

and reflect with a little bit different light than the surface

and we'll need to set the subsurface to something like 0.45.

This is just a value I found that's working for me

and you can already see the effect a little bit in the Eevee here.

Like it got a little bit matte here.

It's not that sharp and you can see how there's a like a little bit different color coming from inside.

So that's what we want and now reduce the roughness to 0.2.

So it's shiny and glossy now, let's go all the way down here.

Let's bring up the transmission to something.

Let's go 0.5.

So that's the property that decides how much light goes through

and transmission roughness to 0.5 as well.

So we have a little bit distortion on the light coming through.

So that's what I like so far.

Let me zoom out and look if we forgot something.

Yes, so we can leave the head dummy there in case there are some views that the light goes through.

So there are no empty spaces behind the mask and we can paint it dark.

So let me just select everything and just select the head here.

Let's create a new material and let's just call it dark.

Pick up the black color, bring the roughness all the way up and leave it like that.

Okay, that's for the head dummy.

So I guess we are finished with the materials.

There just might be some settings that you need to do for the Eevee.

So some of these materials work properly.

So if you now scroll down to the settings of this material,

since we have an Eevee render engine enabled here,

you can see there are some Eevee related options

and we can go on and enable screen space refraction.

And that's the property that will basically tell the material that it's refractive,

that the light can bend inside the object and it can be calculated.

But then you need to go to render settings as well.

First of all, enable screen space reflections and you can see how this changed a little bit.

There are some more reflections in the Eevee there and you can enable refraction.

Now, if we come closer, we can see how this really behaves,

how we set it up, that 0.5 transmission and transmission roughness really kicked in.

So it's not fully translucent.

Okay, let me zoom out and deselect all.

Don't forget to save your file.

Right now, this is your model.

It's rigged, it has all the materials set up

and the last thing to do is some lighting, some beautiful render.

So yeah, let's not waste any more time and let's get to it.

Let's finish this up.