How to Create MatCaps in Blender

 

Blender is a common software used in the 3D art world. It’s used for a lot of reasons within the 3D art industry, such as modeling, texturing, and animating- similar to Maya. Some artists even prefer it to Maya, and I can’t quite blame them as a Maya user (I swear it hates me.) Blender is also free, so lots of beginners to 3D art get their start in this software. One of the cool things about Blender is that is has an easy way to make what is known as MatCaps. Today, I’m going to explain what that is, and how you can make one!

 

So, what is a MatCap? It’s short for “Material Capture”, and it is a preset material, similar to softwares like Maya, Zbrush, and Adobe 3D Substance Painter. However, it also has a lighting set up included – rather than having to make both separately! MatCaps are incredibly useful due to this ability to have the material and lighting together, but they’re also very easy to render and it’s incredibly easy to adjust the settings. Blender comes with a lot of preset MatCaps, but let’s go through the steps to make one!

Firstly, you of course need Blender. Go to Blender.org and download whatever version is compatible for your device.

It will look like this on your desktop:

 

Now, you will need to create a new scene. Open Blender, and a default scene will be opened.

 

Clear out any default objects (A key + delete key).

 

 

Next, add a UV sphere (Shift + A > Mesh > UV Sphere).

 

 

Once the sphere is in your scene, increase the segments and rings. There is no specific number needed for this step. Select the sphere, right click, and click on “subdivide”.

Now, add a camera to your scene – it is the same step as adding your sphere (Shift + A), then select “Camera”.

 

Move the camera on the Z axis so it is above your sphere.

 

Clear the rotation on the camera (Alt + R).

With the camera selected, go to the “Properties Panel”.

Change the type to “orthographic”, then change the orthographic scale to 2.

 

 

Still in the properties panel, go to “output properties”, and change the resolution values so the final image will be square – for most MatCaps, 1024 x 1024 is a good size.

 

 

Now, you’re ready to set up some lights! The lights you choose is entirely up to you, be as creative as you’d like. I just added a simple spotlight. I then adjusted the rotation and position so it was facing the sphere, and then decreased the scale so the light was smaller.

 

Now, set up the material. Again, be as creative as you’d like. Adjust things like color, roughness, metallic, sheen, transmission, etc. For simplicity’s sake, I just added a base color of purple.

 

Now you can render! The settings aren’t very important here, just as long as the render itself is not noisy. Your settings may be varied depending on what material and lighting you’ve chose – more complex setups require different settings so there isn’t any noise. Here are my settings as an example:

 

When you’re ready to render, hit F12. Once it’s done, save the image by clicking “image > save as”, then name the file and save it as a JPEG or a PNG. And that’s all there is to it!

 

In conclusion, MatCaps are very easy to make, and allow you to express your creativity as well, by creating lights and adjusting materials that suit whatever you’re creating. Whether it’s a project for your company, a commission, or even art for friends, family, or yourself – this is a fast and easy way to create a material and lighting setup. The more you create MatCaps, the easier it will become. Soon, it’ll be second nature to you!