Blender Material
Node Basics and
How to Make Glass

Material nodes are set in a screen called the "Shader Editor." Click "Shading" in the tabs at the top of the screen.

This is the Shader Editor. What you see lined up on screen are the "material nodes," features that process your color and surface settings one at a time. You may be picturing a complicated screen, but right after opening it there are only two nodes: "Principled BSDF" and "Material Output."

The thing to remember is that the Material Output on the right is the exit. Whatever arrives there is what appears on screen.

Let's look at what each of the two material nodes on screen is doing.

The Principled BSDF is the node that calculates how a surface looks. Using the values you enter for Base Color, Roughness, and the rest, it works out how that surface reflects light. In the previous article, changing the color or the gloss changed the look because this node's result changed.

The Material Output is the node that receives that result. As we just saw, whatever arrives there is what appears on screen.

Each node has its own defined role like this. Once it has done its job, it passes the result on to the next node. Connecting nodes together is how the look of a material gets built.

Here are the things you see in the Shader Editor and what each of them does.

So what travels along the link that connects the material nodes? It's the result the Principled BSDF worked out, its answer to "here is how this surface looks." Let's cut the link and see for ourselves.

Click the dot next to "Surface" on the Material Output, drag, and drop it on an empty area. The link comes away.

Nothing about the settings changed, yet the object turned black. That's because the Principled BSDF's result no longer reaches the exit.

In the previous article, we said that when a color doesn't show up, you should check whether the Principled BSDF is connected to the Material Output. What you just created by removing the link is exactly that state.

From here we'll build the shape of the tumbler. To make that easier, switch the tab at the top of the screen back to "Layout."

Glass only looks transparent once its surroundings are reflected in it. With nothing to reflect, it won't look like glass no matter how correct your settings are. So we'll set up the surroundings first.

Press Shift + A and add "Mesh" then "Cylinder," and place it next to the cup. If you're continuing from the previous article, add it to that file. If you're starting from this article, use a new file with a cube or something similar standing in for the cup.

It doesn't look like a tumbler yet, so let's give it a taller proportion.

Press S then Shift + Z to scale the width (the X and Y axes) down only. Aim for around 0.4.

Next press S to scale the whole thing up. A tumbler looks natural standing taller than the cup, so aim for around 2.

Now remove the top face to make it read as a tumbler.

Next we'll give it thickness. Without thickness, glass doesn't read as transparent. Thickness is what makes light bend as it travels through the glass, which is what gives glass its look.

Press Tab to return to Object Mode, then press Ctrl + A and choose "Scale" to apply the scale. If you don't lock in the size you just changed, the thickness will come out uneven from one direction to another.

Then, in Modifier Properties (the blue wrench icon), choose "Add Modifier" then "Generate" then "Solidify," and set "Thickness" to around 0.02.

Add a "Bevel" the same way, with Amount at around 0.005 and Segments at 2. Sharp edges make light bend in unnatural ways.

Finally, let's smooth out the faceted look of the surface. From Add Modifier again, choose "Normals" then "Smooth by Angle."

Sometimes that alone changes nothing. It's because the "Bevel" you added just before automatically marks the edges it creates as "sharp." Tick "Ignore Sharpness" in the Smooth by Angle options.

With the tumbler selected, switch to "Shading" in the tabs at the top of the screen. At this point the display may switch itself back to Material Preview. Use the icons at the top right of the 3D viewport to check that you're in Rendered view.

The tumbler has no material yet, so click "New" to create one. Creating the material places two nodes automatically: the Principled BSDF and the Material Output.

The setting that makes glass is "Transmission." Note that "Transmission" isn't kept in the same place as the three settings from the previous article. Scroll down the options on the Principled BSDF node and you'll find a collapsed heading called "Transmission" — click it to open it.

Set "Weight" inside it to 1.0. From here on, this article refers to that in short as "setting Transmission to 1.0." Set these three on the same node as well.

Take a look at the screen at this point. The tumbler is only reflecting light off its surface; it isn't transparent.

You haven't set anything wrong. Transmission isn't a setting that "raises transparency." It switches the surface to a different behaviour: bouncing part of the light off the surface and letting the rest pass into the glass. A window lets the view through and at the same time reflects a faint image of you. What you're seeing now is that reflection. The calculation for light passing through the glass is still off by default in Blender. We'll turn it on in the next step.

Let's enable the calculation for light passing through the glass. There are two places to set it: Render Properties, which turns the calculation on for Blender as a whole, and Material Properties, which applies it to this glass. One without the other has no effect.

Open the camera icon (Render Properties) and tick "Raytracing." It's the system that calculates how light bounces and bends.

From here on, these options aren't on the nodes in the Shader Editor. Go back to Material Properties and open "Settings" then "Surface," near the bottom.

A note on that last one. The official manual explains that a rounded shape such as the tumbler in this article is better suited to "Sphere." When we tried it ourselves, though, "Slab" came out more clearly see-through, so that's what this article uses.

Staying in Rendered view, take a look at the tumbler.

The tumbler that was reflecting at its surface a moment ago now shows clearly through to what's behind it.

Here are all the values set in this article. If it isn't as see-through as you expected, compare them against your current settings.

Search for something like "Blender glass not transparent" and you'll find steps such as "tick Screen Space Refraction" or "set Blend Mode to Alpha Blend." Those options were renamed and moved when Blender 4.2, released in July 2024, changed how EEVEE works.

If the glass won't turn transparent, work down these six checks.

In this article we looked at how material nodes work while building a glass tumbler.

Next, we'll cover textures. Patterns such as wood grain and woven fabric are applied with nodes like Image Texture and Noise Texture. You add the node and connect it exactly as you did here.