[Diaries - Beginner] Color Ramp (Patreon)

Hi guys!

In this diary, I'm going to talk about Color Ramp, its use case of it, alongside methods to implement it.

Definition

The color ramp is one of the shading nodes in Blender. Its purpose is to create a gradient of colors that could serve as an input for the final shader.

Use case

Color ramp is useful to create gradient effects in 3D. However, smart usage of the Color ramp could create endless methods of model shading. This includes making detailed textures like sweat, blood, frostbite, decompositions, wounds, and more. It is also can be used to provide CEL shading to the model.

Methods

1. Go to Material Properties, and add new material

2. Go to shading

3. Select Add -> Converter -> ColorRamp

4. Select the points you would like to edit, and click the color bar below to edit the color

5. Make the necessary color adjustment

6. Connect it to the main shader

Now you might wonder why there is no gradient effect on the object. The reason is that the "Fac" value is set to 0.5. Essentially, "Fac" valu decides which part of the color ramp goes into the shader. Because the "Fac" is set to 0.5, it essentially tells the shader, "I want you to use the color of the color ramp that is located on point "0.5", which is going to be gray". As a result, the object's color changes from white to gray.

To solve this, we need a lot more nodes to tell the color ramp,

"I want you to tell the shader, that you need to color the object based on some specific values"

"Those values can come in the form of maps, or in the form of variables"

Since we just want to make a simple gradient, we're going to need Texture Coordinate node, mapping, and separate XYZ.

7. Add input -> texture coordinate

8. Add vector -> mapping

9. Add converter -> separate XYZ

10. Connect the generated texture coordinate to vector mapping

11. Connect the vector mapping into separate XYZ

12. To tell the color ramp to paint the gradient in the X axis, connect the separated X axis into "Fac". The same thing can be applied to other axes as well.

Congratulations, your object now has gradients. It is a small example of what you could do using the color ramp. These are some of the applications of the color ramp that I have done :

Hair

Arms

Sweat (First try, I know I could make it better)

Better CKB

Yet there are still more ways to utilize them. I wish I could provide more, but this should be enough for now. Good luck!