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What it does: Affects the volume of the material, by

gradually absorbing lighting, becoming darker the deeper
the object is.

Use it for: Muddy water and coloured liquid or glass.

Unlike previous shaders, this doesn't affect the surface of

a shader, it affects it's volume. And in this particular case
it slowly absorbs light, the deeper it goes into the object.

Properties

Density

Controls how thick the volume is. The higher the density,
the more light is absorbed, the darker and richer the colour.

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What it does: Scatters light that pass through the object.

Use it for: Clouds, smoke and mist.

Just like the previous shader, this effects the volume of the
object not the surface - and in this case it scatters the light
instead of absorbing it. Putting the Volumetric Scatter on
your object is like turning it into a cloud: light passes
through and around the object.

Be warned though, it'll instantly increase your render times

:)

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Density

This property controls how thick the volume appears. The

higher this is, the less light will travel through it.

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At it's highest value you can see that it almost looks like a
diffuse shader. This is because the light is barely entering
the volume due to how thick it is.

Anisotropy

This one can seem a little strange at first, but just

remember that anisotropy is simply "the property of being
directionally dependent" (Wikipedia). That means this
property controls what the volume looks like based on the
direction of the light and the camera.

Negative values give more of a bias to scattering light

backwards, whilst positive values scatter more light
forwards.

This means if the light and the camera are pointing in the
same direction (like a camera flash), the volume will be
more visible with a negative anisotropy value. If the light
and camera are pointing in opposite directions (as if you
were looking into the sun), the volume will be more visible
with a positive value. This is a little easier to understand
visually:

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What it does: Combines two shaders together.

Use it for: Almost everything. It mixing the properties of two

shaders together, which is important in the real world.

In the real world, almost no material in existence possesses

the qualities of just one shader. It's a mix of different
properties.

For example, a ceramic coffee mug has diffuse shading for

sure, but it's also shiny, so there's a glossy shader in there
too.

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