User Manual

Blinn [3BI]
The Blinn node
Blinn Node Introduction
The Blinn node is a basic illumination material that can be applied to geometry in the 3D scene.
It describes how the object responds to light and provides multiple texture map inputs to allow
fine control over the diffuse, specular, and bump map components of the material.
The standard basic material provided in the Materials tab of most geometry nodes is a
simplified version of the Blinn node. The primary difference is that the Blinn node provides
additional texture map inputs beyond just diffuse.
The Blinn node outputs a 3D Material that can be connected to the material inputs on any
3D geometry node.
The Blinn model in Fusion calculates the highlight as the dot product of the surface normal and
the half angle vector between light source and viewer (dot(N, H)). This may not always match
the Blinn model illumination model used by other 3D applications.
Inputs
There are five inputs on the Blinn node that accept 2D images or 3D materials. These inputs
control the overall color and image used for the 3D object as well as the color and texture used
in the specular highlight. Each of these inputs multiplies the pixels in the texture map by the
equivalently named parameters in the node itself. This provides an effective method for scaling
parts of the material.
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Diffuse Texture: The orange Diffuse Texture input accepts a 2D image or a
3D material to be used as a main object texture map.
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Specular Color Material: The green Specular Color material input accepts a
2D image or a 3D material to be used as the color texture map for specula highlight
areas.
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Specular Intensity Materials: The magenta Specular Intensity material input accepts
a 2D image or a 3D material to be used to alter the intensity of specular highlights.
When the input is a 2D image, the Alpha channel is used to create the map, while the
color channels are discarded.
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Specular Exponent Material: The teal Specular Exponent material input accepts a
2D image or a 3D material that is used as a falloff map for the material’s specular
highlights. When the input is a 2D image, the Alpha channel is used to create the
map, while the color channels are discarded.
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Bump Map Material: The white Bump Map material input accepts only a 3D material.
Typically, you connect the texture into a Bump Map node, and then connect the
Bump Map node to this input. This input uses the RGB information as texture-space
normals.
Chapter –82 3D Material Nodes 1767