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How to Scatter in Blender 5.0 (Donut Part 7) — Transcript

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0:00In this video, I'm going to show you how
0:01to use the new scatter on surfaces
0:03modifier that was introduced in Blender
0:055.0 to add some lovely sprinkles to our
0:08donut. But first, we need to model those
0:12sprinkles because you can't scatter
0:14nothing. Um, and I want to add my
0:16sprinkle on top of my doughnut or close
0:19to it just so that I can see relatively
0:21the size of it is correct for the donut.
0:24Um, and so how can you do that? How can
0:26you add an object and place it somewhere
0:28in the same motion? Um, and you can do
0:30that by moving the 3D cursor, which is
0:32this little guy down here. And sometimes
0:35it's in a weird place and you're like,
0:36why did it end up there and how can I
0:38move it? So, you can move it by holding
0:41down shift and then right mouse dragging
0:43and then that'll place it on the surface
0:46underneath uh your mouse. Um, so yeah,
0:49it's placed it right there. Um, I might
0:51actually move it up a little bit. Just
0:52kind of Yeah, just about there. Yeah.
0:54So, I want to see it just above my
0:56donut. All right. So, now we need to add
0:58a new object, and that is going to be a
1:00cylinder, of course. So, add mesh and
1:03then cylinder. You could also use a
1:05sphere if you wanted to, if you want to
1:07get like round sprinkles. I'm not a fan
1:09of those. They're too crunchy and just
1:11like I don't know. I always like the
1:13long ones. So, we're going with the long
1:15sprinkle with the cylinder. And just
1:17like before, we're going to go in the
1:20last use settings here. I'm going to
1:22change my radius to the smallest cuz I
1:24mean, hey, we're making a sprinkle. And
1:26yeah, let's start. Let's start there.
1:28Um, so probably should be a little bit
1:30bigger than that. So, um, obviously if
1:32you just like click and drag on this,
1:33it's just way too sudden movement, but
1:35holding shift might remember I mentioned
1:37that. That'll use like smaller
1:39increments. So, I think that's Yeah,
1:42that's pretty good. And then I'll just
1:43increase the depth of this to make it a
1:46little bit longer. You know, something
1:49like that. It's just a a starting block
1:51before we actually start editing it. The
1:53main one though is the vertices. So, I
1:58want to add like a really um Oh. Oh. Oh
2:02gosh, I hit the wrong button on my
2:03Zoomit tool and I flew in there. But all
2:05right, we can work with this. I want to
2:07add a rounded corner to my uh sprinkle
2:10there. So, we're going to be using a
2:12subserve modifier. Um, and if we were to
2:15add it on a mesh with 32 vertices, every
2:18level of subdiv would like double that.
2:20So, it' go 64 and then, yeah, 128,
2:22right? So, um, way too much. So, I'm
2:25going to drop this to six vertices. So,
2:27super low poly, but, uh, it's what we're
2:29going to use. All right. Now, add my
2:32subsurf. Uh, I'm going to move me just
2:34to the side here so I'm not blocking
2:37everything. That's kind of the the
2:39optimal place I've found for me is like
2:41just right on that line. I only have to
2:43move my head sometimes when I do that,
2:44but otherwise I shouldn't be blocking
2:46too much. Anyways, um now add modifier,
2:49generate, and we're going subdivision
2:51surface. And there we go. So, um the
2:54reason we've got this uh diamond shape
2:56is as I've mentioned before, it's using
2:58the like middle points of each face
3:01essentially. So, it has to go from here
3:03to the middle point of this giant long
3:04face. So, to here. So, it's now
3:07averaging out those points. But if I
3:09want to make a tighter, rounder bit
3:10around here, I just have to basically
3:13move out a point here to to add that
3:16that roundness to it. So it only goes to
3:18there. And then I would also do another
3:20one here so that it's the the same thing
3:21on the bottom. So in edit mode, tab, I'm
3:25going to hit CtrlR uh to add my loop
3:28cut. And then it's obviously saying
3:29where do you want to place that loop
3:30cut? So click there and then just slide
3:33it up to the somewhere near the top like
3:36that. Click. And then do the same for
3:38the bottom. Control-r, click, slide to
3:40the bottom. [snorts] Okay. And now let's
3:43have a look at that. Just have a look in
3:44relation to the size of the doughnut. Do
3:46we want it any bigger? Do we want to
3:48change the size? All right. Now, um,
3:52yeah, I'm going to rightclick it and I'm
3:53going to say shade smooth just so that I
3:55can see how that looks. Okay. Now, we
3:57could begin scattering at this point.
3:59Um, but if we did, we would end up with
4:02the same this exact same sprinkle all
4:05over it. and that much repetition to
4:07your eye just looks fake. Like every
4:08single sprinkle actually the way they
4:10make sprinkles is just like from a
4:12piping bag, right? So you just literally
4:14just pipe out a bunch of uh this, you
4:17know, uh piping, right? Glaze. Um and
4:20then it dries and then you just like
4:22break it up. So they all end up in
4:23different sized um shapes and stuff. So
4:26we need to add more sprinkles uh just of
4:29different shapes and sizes. So what I'm
4:31going to do is I'm going to first of all
4:32uh rename this by hitting F2. I'm going
4:35to call it oh boy late in the day
4:39sprinkle. Okay. And now we haven't
4:42really mentioned collections before, but
4:43they're basically buckets and you can
4:45move things in and out of buckets. So
4:47there's a default one that comes in
4:48here. Um, but you can move it out of
4:51this whole collection by just taking the
4:53sprinkle, clicking, and dragging it up.
4:54So I'm going to drop it into my scene
4:56collection there. And the reason I'm
4:58doing that is now I'm going to select
5:00this whole thing and I'm just going to
5:02exclude. Okay. So now when you hit
5:04exclude, it's not going to show up in
5:06your viewport or your render. It's
5:08effectively like it has vanished from
5:10the scene, but you can easily bring it
5:12back there. So it's just a way to like
5:13quickly edit, you know, a bunch of
5:15different things and then bring back the
5:16rest of your scene. Okay, so here is my
5:20sprinkle. I want to create variants of
5:21it. So first I'm going to go into front
5:23view mode and then focus. So one and
5:26then numpad period. Now, what I want you
5:28to do is to create some variance by
5:31duplicating your sprinkle and creating
5:33different twists and turns and shapes
5:35and things. And I'm not going to walk
5:36you through uh doing this. You should be
5:38able to do it if you've been following
5:39the series. But also, I want to tell you
5:42something more important that every
5:43Blender user needs to hear. Blender
5:46needs your help. When you downloaded
5:48Blender, you might remember that it
5:50didn't ask for your credit card, which
5:51is good. Means that everybody in the
5:53world can have free access to 3D and try
5:55it out. But what's bad is that Blender
5:58doesn't have as much money as it needs
6:00to develop the software. There are so
6:03many areas of Blender that they want to
6:05improve, they want to develop, but they
6:07lack the funds, texture painting, the
6:10whole physics engine, sculpting tools,
6:14the compositor. So, the headquarters of
6:16Blender, which is in Amsterdam in the
6:18Netherlands, if you didn't know, uh they
6:20hire some full-time developers to work
6:23there in their offices and also some
6:25full-time contractors from around the
6:26world to contribute and work on these
6:28features. Um, and they get the funding
6:30from that from the dev fund, which is
6:33the engine that enables Blender. So, if
6:36you have been enjoying this donut series
6:39and you've been enjoying Blender, please
6:42donate. If you can go here and join a
6:44monthly donation of 510 or if you're a
6:47high roller 25 or higher is amazing.
6:51This will enable more people who can't
6:53afford this to uh to try out Blender to
6:56to download it and so the software can
6:59remain competitive cuz I don't know if
7:00you know this but Autodesk made $315
7:04million from 3ds Max and Maya last year.
7:07Blender doesn't have that money. So, if
7:09you want Blender and Open Source to win,
7:11we do need people to donate. So, please
7:13consider the link is underneath this
7:15video. You can click that and um please
7:18uh make a donation. All right, with that
7:21spiel out of the way, we can get back to
7:24it. So, I'm going to bring back my scene
7:26now. All right, pull it out. And um
7:30yeah, let's let's let's move this into a
7:32new collection. So, we briefly talked
7:34about collections, but they're
7:35essentially buckets. They're just ways
7:37to organize objects into different
7:38buckets. And you can reference those
7:40buckets in different parts of Blender.
7:42But that's basically it. So, I want to
7:44create a bucket, a collection for my
7:46sprinkles. Now, you can create a new
7:48collection by hitting that little button
7:50at the top there, and you can just
7:51create a bunch of different collections
7:52and rename them. But if you want to move
7:55something and create a collection at the
7:57same time, you can do that as well. So,
8:00if you select all your objects here or
8:02you select them here in the outliner,
8:04then you just hit M. M to move. You can
8:07move it to an existing collection or you
8:09can create a new collection and move it
8:10there. So that's what we're going to do.
8:12So I'm going to call this sprinkles.
8:15Okay. And now that I've got that, I'm
8:17actually going to uncheck it because we
8:19don't actually need to see the sprinkles
8:21um visibly in order to reference them in
8:24our scatter system. So otherwise they
8:26just kind of get in the way there. So
8:28all right. So here it is. Exciting
8:30moment. With your icing selected, we are
8:33going to add in a modifier and it is the
8:38brand new scatter on surface modifier
8:42which is only there as of Blender 5.0.
8:45If you don't see it, you're not using
8:475.0 or at least you're not using a
8:49version later than 5.0 if you watch this
8:51at a later time. So, scatter on surface.
8:54All right. So, so many little settings
8:57and things, but it's very wellm made.
8:59It's uh I actually love it. It's a
9:01fantastic modifier. I'm so happy that it
9:03exists. Um, but anyways, the first thing
9:05we need to reference is here. What
9:07object are we scattering? That's the
9:09instancing here. Okay. So, we're not uh
9:13uh instancing one object. We're going to
9:15do the entire collection. So, go
9:16collection and then here click on
9:18sprinkles. And look, we've got
9:23not what we expected. What's going on?
9:25>> [snorts]
9:26>> Um, so the first thing we need to do is
9:29uh first of all, why is there only one
9:31of them? That's because density is
9:32really low. If we increase density, we
9:34get more of them. But still, it's it's
9:36just getting worse. Andrew, what's going
9:38on? Um, so first of all, uh, underneath
9:41instancing, you need to check pick
9:43instance. That's the first thing. And
9:45that is so that it doesn't reference the
9:47entire group as one thing to be uh,
9:51scattered. you're instead referencing
9:53the individual parts of that collection,
9:55which is the individual sprinkles. And
9:57then as well as that, it has reset the
9:59transform because like it bases it off
10:01of how far away is it from the center of
10:03the thing. But if you go reset, then it
10:05actually bases it on the point of those
10:06sprinkles. Okay, cool. So, ooh, look,
10:09we've got a alien looking landscape or
10:12something, right? Um, but yeah, you can
10:14see you can increase this. The higher
10:16you go, the more sprinkles you will get.
10:19Um, how do we change the rotation? So
10:22underneath transform. Oh, right here.
10:24Right where my head and everything is.
10:27Transform. Okay. You get extra settings
10:29here. So we want to change the alignment
10:32axis. Um, and you can just cycle through
10:34it until you get the correct one. But
10:36yeah, it looks like Y is the one. And
10:38then also, man, I should just Hang on a
10:41sec. Let me just move me. Yeah, a little
10:44bit. Yeah, there we go. Okay.
10:47Randomize. So this is cool. Um so if we
10:49add randomize here, check that box, then
10:52go here. Now we can randomize and add
10:55slight variances to um how it is being
10:57rotated. So to rotate on the Y-axis, we
11:02just increase that to 360. And look at
11:04that. We've got sprinkles on the donut.
11:07But we can go further. We can do so much
11:09more. Um there's a setting at the top
11:11here which is called surface offset cuz
11:13you can see how it's like they're
11:15submerged in the icing. Now, sprinkles
11:17do submerge a little bit in wet icing,
11:20but probably not as much as this. So, I
11:22just want to increase this very, very
11:24slightly. So, if I just hold down shift
11:26and kind of drag out, I can get it to
11:28there just resting on top like that. You
11:31wouldn't believe, by the way, how much
11:32effort it was to create this in Blender
11:36previously. Like, bit of brief history
11:38on scattering in Blender. The old old
11:41way uh was to use the particle system in
11:44Blender which was like old and legacy
11:46and it was badly coded and it kind of
11:49worked but it was you know it was
11:51annoying. Um and then they came out with
11:53geometry nodes which was all mathbased
11:55and mathematical but to do stuff like
11:57this required so much work to set it up
12:00and then now they've come out with
12:02scatter on surface which is still
12:04geometry nodes. So, if you don't know
12:06geometry nodes, there's a tab at the top
12:08there. You can click it and this is what
12:10it looks like. It's nodes, right? Um,
12:13but the cool thing is is that this just
12:15comes packaged with Blender now. And
12:17this is already done. So, the guys at
12:19the Blender Institute that uh, you know,
12:22need your money, right, so that they can
12:24keep working, they came up with this uh,
12:26crazy math-based thing. So, it's got all
12:28the options that we need that everyone
12:30will ever need. and then only one person
12:33needed to do it and then we can all
12:35access it for free. So it means that
12:36creatives don't have to dive into math
12:39just to scatter some sprinkles on a
12:41donut, which is what the last three
12:43versions of this donut tutorial had to
12:44do. And then everyone complained that it
12:46was too technical. And it's like, yeah,
12:48I know, but how else are you going to
12:49get the sprinkles on the donut? Anyway,
12:51all right. So the next thing you're
12:52probably wondering looking at this is um
12:55how do we scatter it in just a specific
12:58area? Okay? Because you'll see, and in
13:00fact, if you select your icing and then
13:01uh forward slash, we've got sprinkles
13:05everywhere, the underside, etc. So, we
13:07only want them around the top of the
13:09donut. So, how do we do that? Well,
13:11there is a way to reference an attribute
13:13inside of this. I'll show you soon. Um,
13:15but the attribute we're going to use is
13:16called weight painting. And you can
13:19activate that by going uh at the top of
13:21your screen there and changing from
13:23object mode to weight paint mode. Um,
13:26and I'm going to deactivate my sprinkles
13:28so that I can just see the icing. Now,
13:30if you were to click and drag across it
13:32when it is active in this state, you'll
13:33see that you get like a a heat map. And
13:35as you can probably guess, where it is
13:37red is going to be where your sprinkles
13:39are. And where it is black, it's where
13:40your sprinkles are not going to be. And
13:42if you want to get technical, weight
13:44paint mode is actually adding an
13:45attribute to the mesh, which is where it
13:47is red, that is a value of one. Where it
13:50is black is a value of zero. And then
13:53varying values between there.
13:54essentially a heat map of values which
13:56are stored in the mesh and then other
13:59parts of Blender can reference this. So
14:01it's a very quick way to just do some
14:03painting on a mesh um to to reference in
14:06different things. Now uh what is not
14:08clear though is that when you're
14:10painting in this mode if you go into the
14:12uh isolated view by hitting forward
14:14slash you might notice that you have
14:16accidentally painted through your mesh.
14:19I wish it wasn't like this, although I
14:21understand why it is because people that
14:22are rigging often want this turned on.
14:25But your brush, you want to check front
14:28faces only because if you don't do that,
14:30then you'll still get your sprinkles
14:31underneath your doughut. So, now that
14:34I've got that, um, I'm going to Yeah, I
14:37mean, you can like paint over the mesh
14:39like this. A quicker way to do it would
14:41be to, um, go into here where my head
14:44is, data, then go into edit mode, right?
14:48Like this, right? So edit mode,
14:49everything is selected. If I drop my
14:51weight to zero and then say assign then
14:55go back into uh weight paint mode,
14:57everything is black because this vertex
14:59group thing here, this is the weight
15:01paint, right? So you can select
15:02everything if you want and just make it
15:04entirely one or you can um make it
15:07entirely zero. Anyways, now that I've
15:09got that, as you can tell, I've got
15:11front faces on. Now I can do my
15:12painting. All right, so where do you
15:14want your sprinkles to go? You just do
15:15that painting, right? Um, and you can
15:18have, you know, you can change the
15:20weight of the brush as well. If you want
15:22there to be like a lot that's kind of
15:24just like on the edge, right? You could
15:26do something like that. But generally,
15:28you know, it doesn't have to be that,
15:31you know, that perfect. You know, I'm
15:33just doing this as an example of how you
15:35could, you know, really do. You could
15:36also go like weight one and then turn
15:38the strength down. And then now as you
15:39paint, you get like, you know, different
15:42amounts of buildup. But, you know, how
15:44detailed do you want?
15:46Like, do you want I don't think
15:48anybody's ever going to look at your
15:49doughnut render and go like, "Wow, the
15:51distribution of those sprinkles is
15:53amazing. You did a great job
15:55distributing the sprinkles." But they
15:58might notice it if it if it looks fake.
15:59You know, so it's it's one of those
16:01things that seems like pointless in 3D.
16:05Like you watch, you know, like Planet of
16:09the Apes, like the making of that that
16:11latest one. I don't know the name of the
16:12the latest one, but I was at Sigraph and
16:14I was watching a a talk where they had
16:17the most amazing the guys at Wetter know
16:19how to do a presentation, but it was
16:20just like full of detail and like tiny
16:24like cuz they had like monkeys in the
16:27the the rapids and like just the
16:30sheeting and the the the plants had to
16:33have just the right amount of of wind or
16:36else you and so like artists are just
16:38slaving over every single detail. And
16:41I'm sure a lot of them were like, "Come
16:42on, who's going to notice?" You know,
16:44and it's like, people will notice if it
16:46looks fake. That's what they'll notice.
16:48Um, but they won't know specifically
16:50what you did, but they'll know if it
16:51looks fake. Anyways, so we've done our
16:54weight painting. I did a lot of detailed
16:56weight painting there. But now, how do
16:59we make our sprinkles just appear in
17:01that place? Oh, yeah. Bring it back by
17:03clicking that. Um, we do it here where
17:05it says distribution mask. Okay. So
17:08instead of this uh single value from 0
17:11to one, we can change it to two. Click
17:13this little spreadsheet looking icon. I
17:16don't know why they went with that icon,
17:18but anyways. Then from the drop-own, we
17:20want to select group. Okay, which is the
17:24name by the way inside of data. It's
17:26right here. So if you wanted to change
17:27that to be
17:29sprinkle
17:31distribution, you could um and then
17:34just, you know, click it there. But
17:36yeah, that's that's what it's
17:37referencing. By the way, make sure
17:39you're not using it cuz you can see
17:41there's distribution mask and density.
17:43They both have this icon. If you instead
17:45used it here, you would see like almost
17:48nothing. And that's because it's now
17:50overridden what was there, a density
17:52value of 900 with a value of 0 to one
17:56across those areas. Whereas a
17:58distribution mark will keep the density
18:00of 900, but it'll multiply it by the
18:04values of 0 to one here. So it's uh it's
18:06important you get the right one.
18:08Distribution mask, not density. But
18:10there you go. Great. Cool. So they're in
18:13the right places generally. You know,
18:15you can play around with it obviously.
18:17Um but now let's talk about some other
18:19settings you might want. Like for
18:20example, the density. How much how many
18:23sprinkles do you want? Now, the big
18:27question people have when they're
18:28looking at this, they go, "How do you
18:30stop the sprinkles from intersecting
18:33each other?" And unfortunately, there's
18:37not an easy answer because this is not
18:39easy to do there. There's a such a thing
18:42as like circle packing. That's the
18:44closest thing, which is like you could
18:46run an algorithm to try to combine
18:49circles of different radiuses to kind of
18:52fit together as best they could. But
18:54just it's it's complex. That's kind of
18:55like a simulation and we just we can't
18:58do it easily here. The closest thing we
19:00have is called distribution method plus
19:04disk which when you click that and by
19:07the way you can only see that option if
19:08you're using density method not amount.
19:11So amount will let you uh actually use a
19:14specific amount of uh sprinkles but then
19:18you don't get this uh extra option here
19:20whereas density bases it on the scale of
19:22the object in relation to the scene and
19:24yada yada. But anyways, on disk gives
19:26you this little setting, minimum
19:28distance. And what it does is
19:30essentially every single one of these
19:32points here, it goes there's a point,
19:34there's a point, there's a point,
19:35there's a point. And then when you
19:36increase this value by whatever amount,
19:39it will add a circle around it, right?
19:42And if you increase that circle and you
19:44increase that circle, right? Eventually,
19:47if this one, for example, had a value of
19:50this size, this little dot here would be
19:53removed because it is now colliding with
19:56the value of this one. So, this one
19:58would override that one. So, this one
20:00gets xed. So, if we increase this, you
20:02can see that is exactly what happens.
20:05All right. So, I'm holding down shift as
20:07I just play with that value there. But
20:09you can see that's removed some of the
20:11intersections, but there are still some
20:13more. So, you might be tempted like,
20:14"All right, let's increase that even
20:16more. Let's increase it like cuz I want
20:18to get I want to get rid of this one,
20:20right? Let's increase it again, right?"
20:23And you go, "Aha, I fixed it. No more
20:25intersection." But now the problem is
20:28the the radiuses are so big that they're
20:30deleting each other and you now have
20:32what looks like meticulously tweezed,
20:35placed uh sprinkles placed along the
20:38doughut um rather than randomness.
20:41Right? So, we've gone from the chaos to
20:43something that just doesn't look right
20:45to the to the eye. So, really what I do
20:48is I just drop this to be as low as I
20:52can get it before it starts to feel like
20:56too manicured. Right. That still to me
20:58feels a little too manicured. I might go
21:01like that. I might even go a little bit
21:03lower. Yeah. See, that feels chaotic to
21:06me. I like that.
21:08And then what I do generally is um I
21:11just change this seed amount here. The
21:13seed amount not very well named but I
21:17understand why they why they did it. But
21:18it's it's just a randomness amount like
21:21a distribution amount. Okay? You find it
21:22in a lot of like procedural workflows
21:24but it's like you can cycle through
21:26here. There's an infinite number of uh
21:28numbers here. And by the way it's not
21:29like you know one is any better than a
21:32th00and or 10,000. Like these are each
21:34individual. It's just a random number
21:37generator to uh give you different
21:39variations. So, you could do that as
21:41many times as you want to try to find
21:43the best distribution that has the least
21:45amount of intersections. That's probably
21:48the best that you can do um with what
21:51we've got. The other the other thing as
21:52well is that sprinkles sometimes are not
21:54laying flat right on a on a donut.
21:57Sometimes they might be a little bit
21:58skewed like that and that can kind of
22:00help with the intersections. So here
22:02where I've got randomize, I'm going to
22:04increase which one? The X, right? Not
22:09too much or else it'll just look weird,
22:12but a little bit makes sense for what
22:14we've got. The other thing that we
22:17should do as well is with our sprinkles,
22:20if we just bring them back by clicking
22:21on that little check box at the top
22:23there, um the point at which they are
22:27spawned onto the icing is where the
22:30origin point is of the uh of the mesh
22:33there. And we haven't talked about that
22:34either, but that's kind of you could
22:36think of it as like the center of mass
22:38for the object. It's we're not using
22:40physics, but like that's kind of how you
22:42think of it. It's like generally
22:44speaking it should be in the center of
22:46an object. You can see here with it
22:48being there. If it was spawned like here
22:51for example, the whole sprinkle is going
22:53to be over here. Right? So if you've got
22:55those circles of radiuses, it might be
22:58intersecting something when it
22:59shouldn't. Um whereas if you select all
23:02of them like this, then you rightclick
23:04and then you say set origin origin to
23:07geometry, they will now be at the exact
23:09center of that sprinkle and it'll just
23:11be a little bit better and there'll be
23:13slightly less um intersections. Um but
23:16that's that's the best we can do. The
23:18alternative way to like have sprinkles
23:20on a donut where they're not
23:22intersecting like this would be to use a
23:24physics engine. Um there's a rigid body
23:27physics engine in Blender.
23:29Unfortunately, it's not very good. It's
23:30very slow. It's one area that they're
23:32looking to overhaul with more funding.
23:35Yes, I found another way to throw it in
23:36there. Um, if more people donate, we can
23:39have good physics in Blender. That's
23:41what I want to tell you. Um, but for
23:43now, this is uh this is the best we got.
23:46Or the other way is you could actually
23:47apply this. You could say, "Apply all my
23:49sprinkles." Um, you would have to
23:51realize first, realize the instances, so
23:54they're actual objects, then apply them.
23:57Um, but you could then actually
23:59physically move each of these little
24:01ones like that. But I wouldn't recommend
24:03doing that. I think it is overkill. It's
24:05not and um it's not needed and it's not
24:08going to help you for the next step
24:09because we got to have random colors. So
24:11yes, colors. Let's make our sprinkles
24:14look not like tic tacs. So yeah, if we
24:18go uh enable our sprinkles, right? You
24:22know, we can come in here. We can give
24:23it a material and you know we could we
24:26could pick a random color you know get a
24:28purple one and then go yeah now I want
24:30to make a yellow one or whatever right
24:33the problem with this method is although
24:35this works and it is fast is um that
24:39you'll always have the green one will
24:42always be that bent one that little
24:44squiggly one right and your eye can kind
24:47of pick up on things like that um it's
24:50also like hard to control the colors
24:52right? Because I can't control how many
24:54blue ones or purple ones or whatnot I
24:55get across my donut. So, it's also not
24:58ideal. So, there is a much better way
25:00which involves, as I briefly mentioned
25:02before, random colors. So, you start
25:05with your material like this. And we're
25:07actually going to give the exact same
25:09material to all of our sprinkles. So, um
25:12let me just disable those and I'll
25:14select all of my sprinkles here. Um, and
25:16if I want to give them all this same
25:18material, all I would do is the last
25:21sprinkle, as long as that's got a
25:23material, I can hit Ctrl L. Ctrl L. And
25:27that will transfer data from one object
25:29to many objects. And then you're just
25:31looking for materials like that. And now
25:34you can see the uh where it says
25:35material, there's a little number next
25:37to it. And that actually tells you the
25:38number of users that are sharing that
25:40data. So there's six sprinkles now all
25:42sharing it. And you know to be good good
25:46little artists um we should call it uh
25:48sprinkle or sprinkles I don't know.
25:51Anyway um cool. So now if we go to the
25:54uh shader tab I'm going to show you how
25:56we can we can make this look cool. So
25:58let's go back to the shader view. Okay
26:00great. So there is no limit really to
26:03what you can do with nodes. Um you can
26:05plug things in and do this and that and
26:07it's it's really cool. There's a bunch
26:09of nodes. If you hit shift A and just go
26:11in here, there's like all sorts of
26:12attributes you can call in and do
26:15complex things and you can get really
26:16technical. So, it's it's a lot of fun.
26:18Um, but the one that we're going to use
26:20is underneath object info. If you bring
26:24in this node, um, you'll see that
26:27there's there's a bunch. There's like
26:28location, you know, you could drag that
26:30into the, uh, color, you know, there's
26:32there's all sorts of things that you can
26:34do with this. The one we're looking for
26:35is random. Okay. So, what this is doing
26:38is it's saying every time there's an
26:41object that is using this material,
26:43we're going to pick a random value for
26:46that object between zero and one. Okay?
26:49And you would actually see if you were
26:51to duplicate this sprinkle again and
26:53again and again and again and again,
26:55which by the way, um, you can do by just
26:58holding down shift R after you do a
27:00duplicate, and you just get more and
27:02more and more sprinkles. Um you can see
27:03that they all now have a value between 0
27:05and one and that's been converted into
27:07color form because 0 is black and then
27:09one is uh white. Right? So that's what
27:13um that's what this is doing. So 0 to
27:15one giving it that scale. Um have I run
27:18out of undos? I've run out of undos.
27:20Well I have to assume that was yeah that
27:23was the last one. Okay, there we go. Um
27:25so that's not very useful in this format
27:27like zero to like like black to white.
27:30It's it's not that fun. But we can
27:33convert those single float numbers 0 to
27:361 into color format by between here and
27:40here dropping in a color ramp node. So
27:43if you go add or shift A and then go
27:46color and then go color ramp, then if
27:48you just drag this in and drop it until
27:50that line lights up, drop it in there.
27:53Now I can say instead of it being black
27:56at this end, let's make this a blue
27:59color. And instead of it being white,
28:01let's make it a orangey color. Right?
28:04And now I've got a range of those.
28:07Right? And you could see as if I was to
28:10duplicate, right? You get kind of like
28:13variance [snorts] across this, right?
28:14Every single one of those is getting
28:16like a new little position somewhere in
28:19this um little uh gradient over there.
28:22Okay. And that's cool. And that would,
28:24you know, if you looked at our donut
28:26now, you would see that we're now
28:29getting a nice range of different colors
28:31across it. However, it's not quite
28:33accurate. If you look at photographs of
28:35donuts, there's there's not really like
28:37the yellow sprinkles are all the exact
28:40same shade of yellow. The blue sprinkles
28:41are all the exact same shade of blue.
28:43And it makes sense because they mix up
28:45the the the sprinkle uh icing uh I was
28:48going to say batter, just the icing
28:51sauce. Icing icing. They just mix that
28:54up with one like lot of food color. They
28:57get just the color right and then it's
28:59piped out and then that becomes the
29:00sprinkle. So they all have one constant
29:02color, not a range of colors like this.
29:05So um by the way, here's a little a
29:08little tip cuz you'll notice this that
29:09like when you click on something else
29:11like you're icing or you're hiding your
29:13sprinkles like I can't get back that
29:15material with all my sprinkles on it,
29:17right? So I have to go here. I have to
29:19enable it just so that I can click on it
29:22just so that I can tweak the color. It's
29:24annoying. You don't need to do that.
29:26We've got a material here that says
29:27sprinkles. So, we can hide it. And then
29:29what I do is I just select my icing and
29:31then I add a new material underneath it.
29:35And then I which you do by clicking the
29:37little plus button there. So, click the
29:39plus and then in the dropown you're
29:40looking for
29:42sprinkles. Okay. And this won't affect
29:45your icing. Like you can stack multiple
29:47materials on one object and then
29:49although we're not going to do it in
29:50this tutorial, you can assign certain
29:52parts of that material to different
29:54parts of your mesh. For example, you
29:56could assign it like that. Um, but you
29:58can also just leave it unassigned and
30:00then that way you can like quickly
30:01reference it. So that's what I like to
30:02do. So I've still got my glaze at the
30:03top there and then whenever I want to
30:05change my sprinkles, they're there and
30:07it's being shared across all the
30:08sprinkles that are hidden. Anyways, so
30:10as I mentioned, I want it to be a
30:12constant color. How can I make this look
30:14like a constant color? You can do it by
30:16changing these handles from instead of
30:18it being linear interpolation to a
30:21constant interpolation. And look at
30:22that. Now it is a hard line. It's not a
30:27a gradient across it. You only get all
30:29of this blue or all of this uh orange.
30:32So, you know, if you wanted to make a uh
30:35Halloween donut,
30:37right, you can go for something.
30:40I I moved to United States a couple of
30:43years ago. coming up on two years ago.
30:46And uh I'm just learning that that's the
30:49colors of Halloween because we don't
30:50really do Halloween in Australia where
30:52I'm from. Like some people do, but it's
30:54really a kind of a rare thing that
30:56people are into. But it's always Yeah,
30:58it's the black, orange, the green, and
31:01the purple seems to be the uh the colors
31:03that people like decorate their houses
31:05with and stuff. And Reese's pieces
31:07really lean into that. They love that
31:09they're one of those colors.
31:12You know, you can do you can do like fun
31:13stuff, right? You can make up the
31:14Halloween looking uh donut if you wanted
31:18to. Um what I'm going to do for mine is
31:22um I'm going to make mine look like
31:24pastel. Um so I like to go with like a
31:27shade of aqua kind of like that. And
31:30then I'm going to go with purple like
31:33that. And this is a a tip by the way.
31:35You never want to go like 100%
31:38um like saturated like that. Um that's
31:42weird. Why is no donut got that exact?
31:45Well, they are. They're just being
31:47washed out. Okay, they don't look very
31:50very extremely saturated. But anyways,
31:52um you never want to go like fully
31:54saturated like that because it can like
31:56using different uh the way you render
31:59it. If you put it like through a like a
32:02a contrast, you kind of like boost
32:04highlights or like make things more
32:05contrasted, it can kind of like blow out
32:07the colors. So, it's it's generally a
32:09good idea to leave things mostly
32:11unsaturated like this. It's also just
32:13like more pleasing on the eye if you
32:15don't have too many things that are
32:17like, you know, extremely intense. Um,
32:20and now this is the other thing as I
32:22mentioned, right? I can now choose the
32:24exact ratio of my sprinkles. More blue,
32:28more purple, more pink, more yellow. And
32:31I just have an exact easy slider to
32:35choose this. Um, and this is really fun.
32:37This is like where you get to be
32:38creative and go like what kind of what
32:41kind of donut am I going to be making
32:42here? You know, um like this, you know,
32:46you can make some white ones.
32:49But yeah, generally as a a rule of
32:51advice um when you're when you're making
32:54something um like this and you've got
32:57lots of colors, lots of potential color
33:00choices, it's best to try to go with
33:02like one primary color, like one that is
33:05making up the predominant color choice,
33:08right? So you go like mostly purple and
33:10then like a few splashes of other colors
33:13and it just helps it. It's it's almost
33:15like it helps your brain digest what
33:17it's looking at. Whereas if you just
33:19went like evenly distributed across all
33:22of them or get an equal share, it just
33:24starts to look a little bit like noise.
33:27Um by the way, the other thing that you
33:29might want to do at this point Oh, I'm
33:30already using it. I'm using medium high
33:32contrast. Um, but we're going to be So,
33:34by default, your color management, it
33:37kind of looks like this. So, your colors
33:39look a little bit washed out. And we're
33:41not going to get into color management,
33:42but essentially like everything is kind
33:45of a little bit desaturated. Um, and
33:47it's designed so that it makes it easier
33:49to grade, but it's not really designed
33:50for a final render when you're using the
33:53none look. Instead, you're better off
33:55using uh medium high or high contrast or
33:57for a YouTube thumbnail. Very high
33:59contrast. That's what I use. Um, and
34:01these aren't like bad. It's not like
34:03they're doing like a rough like contrast
34:05grab or something. This is like a proper
34:06S- log um uh sorry S-curve uh
34:10conversion. Um nothing is peing. It's
34:13all It's all this I I use these all the
34:15time. Medium high, medium uh yeah or or
34:18high. Um anyways, so that's pretty good.
34:21And then I might grab my Oh, yeah. I got
34:23to fix this again. Let's make that back
34:24what it was. Let's move that back.
34:28Get a few more blues in there.
34:31Bit of pinks, bit of whites, bit of
34:32yellows. I'm going to make my icing as
34:35well a little bit hotter. And I'm going
34:40to tweak it a little more towards the
34:42purple range. Just a little bit. Back at
34:45the sprinkles. The other thing I forgot
34:47to mention as well, um, sprinkles are
34:49actually a little bit shiny if you look
34:51at references. So, a little bit shiny.
34:53And then the other thing it really
34:54needs, and this does make a big
34:55difference, is subsurface scattering.
34:57So, just like before, dragging down on
34:59that radius to make them all one. And
35:01then I'm increasing the weight to be
35:02one. And then I just dropped this scale
35:04to be something really low. But that
35:06will make a big difference. I was before
35:08I was like practicing for this this uh
35:10video. Um and I was like, why are my
35:12sprinkles just not looking good? They
35:15weren't looking as good as um you know,
35:17a previous render I'd done and I forgot
35:19subsurface scattering. And it does make
35:21uh a huge difference. So there we go.
35:24We've got a nice looking doughut. Before
35:26you go ahead, what I'd like you to do is
35:29to try to create your own
35:32style of doughut. Um, you could try
35:35substituting the long sprinkles for like
35:38rounded sprinkles or like star- shaped
35:40sprinkles. Um, you could change the
35:42doughut color to be something else. You
35:44could make more donuts by just stacking
35:46donuts on top of each other. Um, here
35:48are some ideas that uh my team and over
35:50the years we different donut versions
35:52and stuff we've we've created. Um, but
35:55you can do a lot. So have fun just
35:57experimenting and trying to create
35:59something of your own with your own
36:01creativity uh injected into it. And
36:04it'll also just kind of teach you to
36:05kind of think independently and like
36:07where is this thing and locate that and
36:09it's you know just a way of like
36:11bringing back that information and also
36:13as your homework uh add some sprinkles
36:16to your plate if you want. Um I won't
36:19show you how to do it because it's
36:20basically the same steps as before
36:23scattering on surface. The only thing uh
36:24I'll mention is that you do need to
36:26apply your solidify modifier so that you
36:28can actually paint on the correct side
36:30of your plate and they will appear um as
36:33long as that's done. But it's super
36:34simple. So I trust you all be able to do
36:36that. Anyways, that's it for this video.
36:39Join me in the next part, the final part
36:41as we do the lighting and rendering.

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