Tutorial: Chess - Part 1: Board

For some time now I've been meaning to make a chessboard in Cinema. So I'm using these tutorials as an excuse to actually make one. The board will be easy to create, hard to texture. The Pieces will be harder to make but easy to texture. So let's get in it. It'll be a long post due to the textures, but that's not a big deal I hope.

1 - place a Cube as start. This'll become our board.

2 - Change the numbers as set on the picture. 500 for the X and Z axis, 25 for the Y axis. This gives us the field we want for the board. Putting on the Fillet is an asthetic thing, you don't have to do it but I do like to have it. It gives the board a nice, smoother feel. I've set it to 2,5. Put the X and Z segments to 10, which gives us space for later to work with.

3 - Make it Editable (C), grab the Extrude tool (D) and then select the top plate of the board. We're going to make it fancy after all. Select the inside squares only.

4 - I've put the offset to 2,5cm. Not too much, just a little edge.

5 - We're already off to textures now! Double click the Materials bar to create a Texture orb. I've already created three. You can create these orbs by double-clicking in the material bar.

6 - I usually prefer to make my own textures, so I'll be going with an onyx and a white Onyx colour.

7 - Okay so the picture is several steps ahead. As you can see, I've painted the board brown and divided the checkered parts in white and onyx. The board and white parts are more for myself, which makes it easier to colour them. The easiest way to do this is by colouring the entire board brown from the start. Then pick every other square, like on a regular checker board and assign it to one of the two other textures. This way, you just need to apply it once instead of 48 times.

8 - So the Onyx texture is something I did not invent on my own. All I did was tweak it a little. I got the formula for it years ago. This'll be hard though. To start off, go to the Colour section, put the Mix mode on Multiply.

After that we'll make two Noise properties, which are under the "Shader" section. Then a Folder, which is just the "Folder" button. Still on the Folder, add another Noise and now a Distort as well, which is under "Effect". Change the properties as the picture.

Moving on to Diffusion, a bit easier here. Mix Strength goes to 30, Brightness at 100%. Then as texture, use a Noise. Like the one in the picture.

Reflection is the easiest. Colours change slightly with R 230, G 240 and B 255. Brightness at 30% and we will use a bump. The texture is a Fresnel for the smooth reflection we want and we do not change that at all Bump goes right back to the harder parts. Set it to 10% Strength and put in a Layer as Texture. Inside the layer we want a Clip, which is named as Clip Color under "Effects". As well as an additional Folder with a Distort and Noise again. I'll show these again in the picture below

For Specular I'll be needing a picture as well. It's an easy one again, but the visual aid does help more with this one. It is important to put the mode to Colored instead of Plastic. That does change the reflection a lot. In my eye, a lot more realistic.

So that is Onyx. Now we'll immediately go to the white version.

9 - The white Onyx is basically the same, so you could copy all of the above (Or simply copy the Texture ball). All we need to do is change a few of the noises in the Color department. Put every Noise at 100%, except the Noise Scale. Inside the first two Noises, simply change the black colour to a lighter one. That's all. Don't go fully white though, you'll still want it to have the onyx look on it.

10 - Now that we have the checkered plate, we just need wood! Or if you want, something else. I'll go with wood. I like Ebony, so I'm going with a darker kind of wood as well.

For the Ebony-like colour, go to the colour section first. The colour will be 200 in every RGB section, Mix Mode will be Multiply at a 75% strength.

Then, we'll need to make a Layer again. Add three Noise properties and a Folder with a Noise and Colorize inside. The Noise is under Shader, Colorize is under Effect. Set it up like in the picture. The browish colour I used is an R 130, G 100 and B 67. But you can play with this however you wish.

Diffusion has the "Affect Specular" ticked off, a normal Mix Mode and 40% strength. With a Noise texture.

Reflection goes easier. The colour stays the same. Brightness goes down to 2%, we throw in a Fresnel Texture with a Normal Mix Mode and 2% strength. I've also added a 10% blur to it. This as well as the Specular will make the wood look polished. While the Bump will make it look rough.

The Bump will have a 75% strength and again a Layer texture.Inside the Layer, there'll be 3 Noise Properties, set up as in the picture below.

The final one, Specular, is easy as well. The R and B value will be set to 250. I've put the mode to plastic this time, which will bring out the polished shine much better. Width goes to 55%, Height 20%, Falloff -10% and Inner Width 5%.

And there we go! Finished! You should now have a chessboard. I'll put my render settings down below, so you can see how mine are. But customize the settings to your preference and what your computer can handle! I've set the screen to the size I prefer, and most frequently use. Anti-Alias is on the Best setting for me, without any other changes. I've also added an Ambient Occulusion and Global Illumination, for the quality and light. No edits were made on those either.

I've set up a Camera, Softbox Light and a white background as well, to make it look better as a final product. I'll make tutorials on the Softbox and background in the future, which both are very useful in other projects. My Final Product looks like this:

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! If there are any questions, feel free to comment.