A practical approach, from the very basics, on Cycles rendering in Blender; theory and practice, with resource files.

Cycles is a rendering engine, a program that transforms a 3D virtual environment into a 2D image, or render. It does this by making calculations of the lighting and shading of the scene, taking into account factors such as the nature of “physical” objects - their textures, the effects of refraction - in order to produce the end result.

From version 2.62 of Blender 3D, Cycles comes ready-installed, and since then the list of functionality has grown, with new features in each release.

This course is aimed at those who have a basic knowledge of Blender and want to know the features, functions and capabilities of Cycles rendering engine; a basic knowledge of Blender Render (materials, textures, lights) is recommended, yet not required.

Even those who already have a good knowledge of Cycles will find this manual useful , since they can expand and deepen the knowledge of the tools and key techniques of lighting and shading.