Texturing and Shading
Shading networks
A shading network connects nodes: a material (for example, Standard Surface or Lambert) receives color and scalar inputs from textures, ramps, and utility nodes. A candidate must distinguish the material node from the texture node and know that a 2D texture uses a place2dTexture node for repeat, offset, and rotate.
UV mapping
UVs map 2D texture space onto 3D surfaces. Core tools: Planar, Cylindrical, Spherical, and Automatic projection, plus Unfold and Layout. Overlapping UV shells cause texture bleeding; flipped UVs cause mirrored textures. The UV Editor shows shells and lets you normalize and pack them.
Traps in exam questions
- File texture color space matters: color textures use sRGB, while normal maps and masks use Raw or Non-Color. Wrong color space causes washed-out or incorrect results.
- Place2DTexture controls tiling, not the file node's own attributes, for repeat and offset.
- Bump perturbs normals only; Displacement moves geometry and needs subdivision or render-time displacement.
- Hypershade is where networks are built; the Attribute Editor edits a single node.
- Assigning a new material to selected faces requires face selection; otherwise the whole object is reassigned.
Rule of thumb
Trace the network from the surface outward: material, then texture, then place2dTexture. If tiling is wrong, fix the place node; if color is wrong, check color space.
Worked example
A checker texture repeats only once across a large wall. The file node's repeat attributes are not the cause; the connected place2dTexture has Repeat UV at 1,1. Setting it to 8,8 tiles the texture. If the texture also appears too dark, verify the file node's color space is sRGB rather than Raw.