stylized-blender-setup

This repository provides a comprehensive shader setup that you can use to turn exported PCB models into photorealisitc rendered images in Blender. As an example the Blender file includes this scene:

If you just want to download the Blender project, we recommend you to not clone this repo since it's very large in file size. Instead you can download the .blend file and all necessary textures from the Releases page as a compressed ZIP folder.

If you want to know how this Blender file was created, you can read our articles about this on our blog:

• Rendering PCBs (Part 1) - Preparation, Textures and UV Unwrapping
• Rendering PCBs (Part 2) - Shader Setup
• Rendering PCBs (Part 3) - Final steps

The articles are available in 🇬🇧 and 🇩🇪. If you have any technical question or recommendation, feel free to open an Issue or Pull Request!

Shader Configuration

Inputs:

Name	Type	Description
PCB Base	Color	Color of the PCB's surface with soldermask and copper underneath. Recommendations:
PCB Base Dark	Color	Color of the PCB's surface with soldermask and no copper underneath (this is usually darker than the color of PCB Base). Recommendations:
Top / Bottom Copper Mask	Image	B/W Texture of the Copper Layer. Expects black areas to indicates Copper and white areas to indicate no Copper.
Top / Bottom Silkscreen Mask	Image	B/W Texture of the Silkscreen Layer. Expects black areas to indicate Silkscreen and white areas to indicate no Silkscreen.
Top / Bottom Soldermask Mask	Image	B/W Texture of Soldermask Layer. Expects black areas to indicate no Soldermask and white areas to indicate Soldermask.
Copper Color	Color	Color of the exposed copper. Usually silver-ish or gold-ish. Recommendations:
Silkscreen Color	Color	Color of the silkscreen. Usually just white.

Outputs:

Name	Type	Description
Shader	Shader	A combination of silkscreen, soldermask and copper materials according to the layer masks. There is also a material between the top and bottom which is visible on the sides of the PCB.
Displacement	Displacement Map	Contains bumps on the surface caused by different layers.

Eventhough the shader configuration is quite complex, we encourage you to look into it and play around with the materials and parameters. We tried our best to configure the materials as realistic as possible, but don't hesitate to change them for your needs as you may find even more realistic parameters.

Development

This repository contains a Blender project file which is quite large. Hence, it's best to compress this file before pushing any changes. To make life easier, there is a Python script named tools.py which can be used for compressing and uncompressing the .blend file. Also you can use it to setup a pre-commit hook which will automatically compress the right file before you create a commit.

Here is how you can use this script:

usage: tools.py [-h] command [file]

Tools for stylized-blender-setup

positional arguments:
  command     Determines type of operation. See command list below.
  file        Path to target file

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

command list:
  compress      Compress .blend file using gzip and create .blend.gz file
  uncompress    Uncompress .blend.gz file using gzip and create .blend file
  install       Setup pre-commit hook for automatic compression before committing.

NOTE: This script uses standard packages of Python, so you don't have to install additional dependencies. The functionality was tested under Linux. It may not work on other systems.