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Prerequisites

Several topics you should know about Blender before getting started with materialiq.

Minimal and recommended hardware requirements

Blender and therefore materialiq is cross-platform, it runs on Windows (8.1, 10 and 11) macOS 10 and Linux.

Minimum

  • 64-bit quad core CPU with SSE2 support
  • 8 GB RAM
  • Full HD display
  • Mouse, trackpad or pen+tablet
  • Graphics card with 2 GB RAM, OpenGL 4.3

Recommended

  • 64-bit eight core CPU
  • 32 GB RAM
  • 2560×1440 display
  • Three button mouse or pen+tablet
  • Graphics card with 8 GB RAM

Special cases

  • Since Blender 2.93 Windows 7 is no longer supported. Microsoft discontinued Windows 7 support in January 2020
  • Blender 2.9x require macOS 10.13+
  • Blender 2.8x require macOS 10.12+
Supported versions of Blender

materialiq supports Blender 2.93 LTS, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 LTS. It is very likely but not guaranteed to work on any versions between those and versions newer than 3.3 LTS.

Basics of Blender

Are you familiar with the basic Blender concepts? Do you know what a vertex is? How to work with Blender modifiers? How to create a vertex group and use it for weight painting?

If not we strongly suggest following the official tutorial series by Blender, or going through the official documentation.

How shading works

Do you know what the nodes in the Shader Editor do and how to work with them?

Blender has an introduction video on the topic. Alternatively, you can have a look at the official documentation, or the complete list of Shader Nodes.

Common shortcuts

Are you familiar with the most common Blender shortcuts? Do you know how to apply scale? How to swap between different Viewport Shadings? How to repeat the last operation?

Going through the official tutorial series is recommended to get familiarized with the common shortcuts. Alternatively have a look at the list of common shortcuts and the default keymap by Blender.

Furthermore, for the complete list of all shortcuts head into Edit -> Preferences -> Keymap. There is a search function and you can also set up shortcuts yourself. However a better way to do that might be to simply open up a menu, right click on an operator, choose "Change Shortcut".

The F3 feature of Blender

Did you know that you can always just press F3 and search for the operator instead of remembering all the shortcuts? Give it a shot!

Your hardware has limits

Blender is not a real-time application, its rendering process is done separately. If you find your viewport laggy, consider using a different viewport shading.

The scale of your scene

The scale of your scene is directly connected to your hardware limitations. When working on big scenes we strongly recommend hiding collections in the viewport, using the 'Display as Bounds' feature, or optimizing the scene in other ways.

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