Open Shading Language for Blender

Michael Andrews released a new e-book aimed at people who want to learn Open Shading Language for Blender. You can read more about it on this page.

You can find a sample of the first few chapters there and details on how to purchase it. Readers of BlenderNation who purchase it this year at Smashwords may enter the coupon code QK46Y to get it for just $3.99.

Learn how to program Blender's scripted shader nodes in Open Shading Language to get the most out of Blender's Cycles rendering engine. Using practical examples and clear illustrations this book will take you from simple patterns all the way to complex materials in small and gentle steps.

Scripted shader nodes in Blender's Cycles rendering engine give you unlimited possibilities when it comes to creating materials far surpassing any built-in nodes. Scripted shaders are programmed in Open Shading Language and this book will get you up to speed quickly with this easy to learn yet powerful programming language. Each section introduces new concepts while focusing on real shaders, keeping the learning curve gentle even for people with little programming experience. In each section we will present a ready to use shader that is analyzed in detail. The concepts are illustrated with images and diagrams and for each shader and example node setup is presented that shows how the shader could be used in Blender's node editor. The source code for the examples and ready to use .blend files are freely available so you can experiment with the shader before delving into the code.