Wooden Barrel | Blender 4.1 – Olde Tinkerer Studio

This video shows how to create a 3D model using Blender 4.1. You will learn how to model, UV unwrap, and texture a wooden barrel using Blender. The final render was done in Blender.

Wood Sides

I start with a cylinder with 16 vertices and no cap fill

I set the origin to the 3D cursor and scale the cylinder to the desired size – applying the transforms

I add a horizontal edge loop to the center and scale the edge loop out along the X- and Y-Axis

I add a bevel with multiple loop cuts to give the barrel a rounded form

I select every-other vertical edge loop and add a bevel

I scale these new faces inward – this make it look like there are separate pieces of wood

I scale the top and bottom edge loops inwards to add some thickness – bridging the edge loops

I then add a horizontal edge loop in the middle of the interior and add a bevel with multiple loop cuts

I select the top interior edge loop and move it along the Z-Axis to flatten the top faces – repeating this process for the bottom interior edge loop

Under the UV Editing workspace, I select the top and bottom edges on the interior and exterior and a vertical edge along the back

I mark the seams, select the entire barrel and unwrap the barrel

In object mode, I add a smooth by angle modifier and tick the ignore sharpness option

*NOTE: In version 4.0 and earlier, you can just right-click and shade auto smooth

Wood Lids

For the lids, in edit mode, I duplicate the top and bottom interior edge loops

I then separate these edge loops

In object mode, I hide the barrel and select the lids

In edit mode, I select the lids and clear the seam

In edge select mode, I select the edges and add faces

I add new faces to the edges that need them to make separate planks

I select the smaller faces and extrude them along the Z-Axis

I check the normals to make sure they are facing the correct direction

To add some thickness, I select each lid separately and extrude along the Z-Axis

Under the UV Editing workspace, I select the top and bottom edges and a vertical edge along the back

I mark the seams and then select the lids and unwrap them

Metal Bands

I select the barrel and in edit mode, select the faces I want to become the metal bands

I duplicate the faces and separate them from the barrel

In edit mode, I clear the seams

I select the small interior faces and then use CTRL + Numpad Plus to select the sides of these faces – deleting the selected faces

I select the vertices left behind and merge the vertices in the center

I add a solidify modifier above the smooth by angle modifier – applying it in object mode

Under the UV Editing workspace, I select the top and bottom edges and a vertical edge along the back

I mark the seams, select the metal bands, and unwrap them

Wood Material

I select all the wood objects and unwrap them onto one UV map

With UV sync turned on, I select the slats and rotate them so they are properly positioned on the UV map

I then turn off UV sync and select all the UV islands

Under the UV menu, I select pack islands – turning off the rotate option

Textures:

Wood 060: https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Wood060

Metal 029: https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Metal029

Gray Overlay: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/texture-gray-overlay-318907/

I go into material preview

I split the viewport and open the shader editor

I will be using the Node Wrangler add-on

I make a new material for the wood

I select the Principled Shader and use SHIFT + CTRL + T to open the wood textures

I add a mix color node and connect the AO map and the color map – changing the blend mode to multiply

I also increase the scale of the textures using the mapping node

I apply this same material to the lids

To add some more detail to the material, I add the grunge texture

I duplicate the mix color node and connect the grunge texture to the B input and the color map to the A input – changing the factor to 1

I connect this second mix color node to the A input of the first mix color node

I connect the color of the grunge texture to the factor of the mix color node

I add a color ramp in between the grunge texture and the factor of the second mix color node

I change the blend mode to subtract

I move the color stops to change how the grunge appears on the wood

Metal Material

I select the metal objects and unwrap them onto one UV map

With the UV sync option activated, I select the horizontal islands and rotate them so they are properly positioned on the UV map