Sign In
Sign in
English

TopBanners120604.jpg



June 4, 2012 8:00 AM

 

By Daniel RadialRonnie Metien


Basic Cycles Cavity shader tutorial.


weo8Z.png

This walk-through is thorough and detailed in its explanation and only assumes only basic knowledge of interface manipulation. 

ZWjwM.png

Firstly you need to insure that your mesh is high-poly enough because we will be using Vertex Colors. The monkey mesh shown about is NOT high-poly enough and will show streaking in the final result if not subdivided.

Add a sub-div modifier and apply it if you think it's needed.

idXd1.png

Hop on over to the Vertex Painting mode.

2dXRG.png

In the Paint menu in the footer, select "Dirt Vertex Colors."

xY6qv.png

This is the result of the bake with the default settings:

8JKWE.png

Directly after giving the AO bake command, press F6 to open the settings for this command;

jNBWM.png

Enter a smaller value for the Highlight Angle field to make the exposed areas stay white, and the cavities become darker.

3FhJz.png

This makes the overall result too bright, so you need to repeat these steps several times (I had to do it ~5 times)
[edit] To clarify, you need to rebake, and change that setting for each time to repeat the process. Simply pressing F6 several times won't change anything.
Keep in mind that once we are finished with this shader, Pure White will only be our one shader while Pure Black will be only the secondary shader.

This looks much better:

iVWNL.png

Now for the fun Part:
Add a new material, and change the surface type of Mix Shader:

VUsFL.png

Change the two mixed shaders to Glossy and Diffuse (in that order)

lqprJ.png

Now split a new node window making sure that you are seeing material nodes.

YkPIu.png

Change the shader colors to suit your needs. Here I set the Base glossy color to a brassy color, and the cavity shader to a bronze patina color (with exaggerated saturation).

DqkhA.png

Add a new attribute node:

LlEod.png

Quickly pop open the Object Data tab:

lpvKr.png

Copy the Vertex Color name.

0tWvS.png

Paste the copied vCol name into the attribute node:

hMWjP.png

Plug in a a color invert node:

hfi8v.png

This is what everything should now look like. Notice the attribute's output is plugged into the Col value of the invert. By default it'll go into the Factor value which is something totally different.

DWoih.png

Upon render, your shader could look something like this:

tUMjB.png

lp2tM.png

vBu33l.jpg

There several things you could do differently. For example, you might have used different settings at the AO bake stage. You might have tweaked the baked vertex colors manually with the paint brush getting 'custom' results.

The shader is as basic as you can get it. You could modify this to your heart's content to get exactly the results you want.

Check out the .Blend file if you have trouble following the tutorial:
.blend (130kb)


Related Links:

1. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?241389-Dirt-procedure&p=2036346&viewfull=1#post2036346

2. http://danielsarts.tumblr.com/

3. http://www.livelightstudios.com/

4. http://dan52t.deviantart.com/gallery/

Views :
119257
Registered Date :
2012.06.04
21:46:03 (*.226.203.124)
Trackback :
http://blendernews.org/xe/1262/480/trackback
Article URL :
http://blendernews.org/xe/1262
List of Articles
Subject Datesort Views
Blender Retrospectives 2020 Blender Retrospective Feb 20, 2021 211107
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file Jan 25, 2020 563245
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file Jan 25, 2020 426336
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file Jan 25, 2020 432086
Tutorials Top 15 Highest-Rated Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file Jan 25, 2020 376000
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 for Blender 2.8 file Jan 23, 2019 345154
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file Jan 23, 2019 684442
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file Jan 23, 2019 408523
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 file Jan 23, 2019 345058
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2018: Winners Annouced file Jan 02, 2019 381791
Blender Retrospectives 2018 Blender Retrospective file Jan 02, 2019 376181
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2017 file Jan 09, 2018 969125
Blender Retrospectives 2017 Blender Retrospective file Jan 01, 2018 696913
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2017: Winners Annouced file Dec 26, 2017 550894
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials (Videos) Released in 2016 file Jan 16, 2017 765534
Blender Retrospectives 2016 Blender Retrospective file Dec 29, 2016 1060438
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2015: Seven Winners Annouced file Jan 20, 2016 790682
Blender Retrospectives 2015 Blender Retrospective file Jan 12, 2016 762400
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2015 file Jun 26, 2015 805756
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2014: Five Winners Annouced file Jan 02, 2015 813965
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2014 file Dec 11, 2014 852832
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of February 2, 2015 file Feb 04, 2015 33982
Render of the Week 'Snake, Dragonfly, License' by Mojtaba Farokhi - the Winner of the Week of January 26, 2015 file Jan 28, 2015 37031
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of January 26, 2015 file Jan 28, 2015 40815
Render of the Week 'Dark Silver Straight Sword' by Wing Wai Sze - the Winner of the Week of January 19, 2015 file Jan 21, 2015 40273
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of January 19, 2015 file Jan 21, 2015 33356
Render of the Week 'The Greenbox Studio' by Jesse Sutherland - the Winner of the Week of January 12, 2015 file Jan 13, 2015 38868
Product Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of January 12, 2015 file Jan 13, 2015 33626
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of January 5, 2015 file Jan 07, 2015 35284
Blender Retrospectives 2014 Blender Retrospective file Jan 06, 2015 23925
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of December 29, 2014 file Jan 02, 2015 33563
Render of the Week 'Beast in the Snow' bySteffen Hess - the Winner of the Week of December 22, 2014 file Dec 23, 2014 36212
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of December 22, 2014 file Dec 23, 2014 33043
Render of the Week 'Colorful Sparrow' by Fabian D'Abundo - the Winner of the Week of December 15, 2014 file Dec 17, 2014 45413
Blender Whiz The Artist Behind 'Man's Reach Exceeds His Imagination:' Matias Raassina file Dec 17, 2014 30073
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of December 15, 2014 file Dec 17, 2014 36641
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2014 Worthy of Your Note file Dec 09, 2014 538837
Render of the Week 'Call Me Ishmael' by Lorenzo Drago - the Winner of the Week of December 1, 2014 file Dec 02, 2014 36420
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of December 1, 2014 file Dec 02, 2014 34859