Usually applies uniformly to an object (in contrast to textures). How well, for example, does it reflect, refract or transmit light and what is the primary/overall color we perceive it as. Relatively new to Blender and 3D but this is how I think of them.Ī shader conveys fundamental properties that determine how light interacts with the object. 'material' and 'shader' especially are often used interchangeably. You can think of it as a container or wrapperįinally, remember that many people are not always consistent about using these terms according to the definitions here. A material might consist of a single BSDF, or it might contain a vast array of textures, utilities, and multiple BSDFs.

These perform some conversion function (examples in Cycles would be the Math node, or the Blackbody node), or provide access to variables (such as the Geometry or Texture Coordinates nodes) MaterialĪ material is a collection of shader(s) that you apply to a model to define how it is shaded. There are also a number of things that aren't quite textures that fall under the vague heading of 'utility shaders'. They do this by either loading an image file, or creating a procedural pattern of some kind, such as noise, bricks, or gradients. (but in some sense, all the nodes are shaders). Blender's UI follows this convention, the BSDF nodes are in a submenu called 'shaders'. It can be anything, including a texture, but the term is often used to refer to a shader that runs a BSDF or group of BSDFs, or something of that nature, such as emission. A shader is a piece of code that is run when shading a mesh.

C4d paint texture