realistic shaders ebook

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Learn to create realistic shaders Chapter 01

www.3dtotal.com Chapter 01

Chapter 01 Software used: 3ds Max and V-Ray

Welcome to this new tutorial series! In the next

three installments of this tutorial we’ll be creating

complex materials and shaders for a control

panel full of buttons, switches, levers, knobs and

any other sort of machinery-related object.

We will also set up the lighting for our scene,

together with some critical rendering parameters

and options. We will use 3ds Max 2013 and

V-Ray for the rendering.

Let’s get started by having a look at the 3D

scene I have provided (Fig.01). It’s composed

of a simple square room with a big opening on

one of the side walls. Some sort of machinery is

lying near the north wall of the room and it’s got

a quite complex control panel, which is the focus

of our tutorial.

In this first part we will just create materials and

shaders for the biggest objects (the machinery

itself, the walls, the floor). We will not be

If you render the scene, you’ll get something

similar to Fig.02.

As you can see, basic lighting has been set up

for you. It’s composed of a simple V-Ray light

pointing down from the ceiling. In the Render

Setup panel, the GI is enabled (Irradiance and

Light Cache) and the scene has been rendered

through a V-Ray physical camera (Fig.03).

If you want to check or modify the V-Ray light

or the V-Ray physical camera, just go to the

Display tab of the Command Panel and uncheck

the Lights and Cameras options in the Hide by

Category rollout. This will show both the light

and the camera, which were hidden to avoid

clutter in the scene.

covering the rendering setup here, since we will

talk about that in the third and last part of the

tutorial, so don’t worry about rendering in this

phase. We will just set up a basic lighting with

one V-Ray light and some GI to better see how

our materials react to light.

Chapter 01 Learn to create realistic shaders


Name this material something like “Machine_

BaseMetal” and assign the Machine_

BaseMetal_01.jpg texture (which is included

with this tutorial) to the Diffuse slot of the

material (Fig.07).

Click on the Map slot next to the Reflect color

(leave it black) and assign an Output map from

Let’s start creating the material for the object

called “Machine_Desk”, shown in Fig.04.

We want to give the whole scene an overall

worn and used-looking feel, so we’ll need to

create shaders to recreate that atmosphere.

The basic material of the machine is obviously

metallic, but we also want it to be covered with

some sort of paint. In order to obtain this kind

of material we need to use a VRayBlendMtl

material.

Select one of the slots in the Material Editor,

give it an appropriate name (such as “Machine_

Desk”) and click on the Standard button to

pick a different kind of shader. In this case, a

VRayBlendMtl shader (Fig.05).

The VRayBlendMtl allows us to create a multi-

layered surface, composed of a basic material

and up to nine different “coat” materials. All of

these can be blended together using a texture

map. In our case, we just need a basic material

(metal) and another one (the paint) to be

blended through a texture.

Let’s start creating the basic metal material.

Click on the None button of the Base material

slot and pick a VRayMtl material from the

Material/Map Browser (Fig.06).

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Move the time slider to frame 1. A keyframe for

the V-Ray physical camera has been set for

you to zoom in on the machine’s desk. Render

the scene to check how our metal material is

reacting to the light (Fig.10).

the Material/Map Browser that will open. Go

to the Output map properties and reassign

the same Machine_BaseMetal_01.jpg texture

we used for the diffuse color. Set the Output

Amount to something like 0.25 (Fig.08).

The Output map allows us to control the amount

of output for a certain texture, so here we’re

using it to control the amount of reflection of our

metal base material. A value of 1.0 for Output

Amount means you are fully using the texture

“as is”, while lower values will dull the texture

itself, making the material less reflective in this

case. That’s fine because we don’t want our

metal to have mirror-like reflections.

Another good thing to do when creating metal

materials is to change the shader type in the

BRDF rollout of the Material Editor. Set it to

Ward and change the Anisotropy value to about

0.9 (Fig.09).

Let’s move on to the paint material. Go up in

the material hierarchy and reach the root blend

material. Click on the first Coat materials slot

and assign a new VRayMtl material from the

browser. Name it “Machine_Desk_Paint” and



assign the Machine_Desk_Paint_01.jpg texture

in the Diffuse slot (Fig.11).

Set the Reflect color to a medium gray (not too

bright) and the Refl. Glossiness to about 0.8.

Tick the Fresnel Reflections option and click on

the L button next to it. Also, set the Fresnel IOR

to 1.8. The higher this value, the more reflective

the material will be. We don’t want it to be as

reflective as the metal material we did earlier

(Fig.12).

Now that we have both the base and coat

material, we can go on and assign a blend map

to the root material. Go back to the Machine_

Desk_Blend material and click on the Blend

Amount rollout next to the first coat material we

created earlier.

Assign a new bitmap and pick the Machine_

Desk_Blend.jpg texture. This texture will drive

the blend amount from the base material to the

coat material: where the texture is pure white, it

will display the coat material and where it’s pure

black it will display the base metal (Fig.13).

Now render the scene again using different

camera positions (just move the time slider

from 0 to 1 or vice versa to use my pre-defined

camera positions) and have a look at how the

blend material appears in the scene (Fig.14).

Now we need to create the same material

for the bottom part of the machine. We can

just duplicate the blend material we created

for the desk (just drag and drop it to the next

free slot in the Material Editor). Rename the

duplicated material something like “Machine_

Bottom_Blend”. Also, rename its coat material

to “Machine_Bottom_Paint”; we can leave the

Machine_BaseMetal as is.

We also need to change the blend map, since

we’re working with a different object with

different UVs. Assign the Machine_Bottom_




Blend.jpg texture to the Blend amount slot of

the blend material. Don’t forget to assign this

new material to the right mesh in the scene, and

render again (Fig.15).

You can assign the same materials to the other

machine on the left. It would be a good exercise

to duplicate the materials, renaming them and

creating your own blend maps for the new

objects. We can use the same materials and

maps, but that would look too similar and so it

would be nice to have one different map per

object, but I’ll leave that to you.

Let’s continue creating the material for the front

and desk panel. Nothing fancy here: it’s just a

simple VRayMtl material with it’s own textures

for the Diffuse and Bump channels.

Next create a new VRayMtl material, then

assign the Machine_Panels.jpg texture in the

Diffuse slot and the Machine_Panels_Bump.

jpg in the Bump slot. Set the bump value to

something like 15 (it strongly depends on the

distance from the camera, so let’s just start with

a low value and then we’ll see once we set up

the final rendering). Assign this new material to

both panels (and do that for the other machine

on the left, too). Render the scene again

(Fig.16).

The final rendering camera will be focused

on the control panel itself and all its elements

(switches, buttons, etc.,) so we don’t need

to give particular attention to other objects in

the scene like the other machine on the left,

the walls or the floor. Nonetheless, some of

these objects may be within the picture and

anyway they could help us with reflections and

light diffusion. So we’ll give them some basic

materials, just in case.

Create a new VRayMtl material and name it

“Walls”. Assign the Walls.jpg texture in the

Diffuse slot and the Walls_Bump.jpg texture

in the Bump channel. Set the bump value to

a very low one; for example 5. To give some

more realism, we can also make this material

reflective; in nature, every material reflects the

light somehow, even those material that you

would not classify as “reflective”.

Drag the same texture you used for the bump

into the Reflection slot and set the Refl.

Glossiness to a very small value like 0.33.

Assign this new material to both the wall object

and the floor, and render again (Fig.17).

This concludes the first part. In the next one

we’ll focus on smaller objects and details, and

create materials and shaders for them.

Luciano IurinoWeb: http://www.lucianoiurino.it/

Email: [email protected]

http://www.lucianoiurino.it/

mailto:axxe78%40yahoo.it?subject=




Welcome to the second part of this tutorial. This

time we’ll start from where we left off in the first

part and we’ll create all the materials needed for

smaller objects like levers, switches, buttons,

etc. Let’s get started!

First, open the “Part2_Start.max” file and isolate

the objects marked with the white wireframe in

Fig.01.

Create a new VRayBlendMtl and call it

something like “Square_Plate”. This blend

material will have two different VRayMtls inside,

and they will be blended by a texture (just like

we did in the first part of the tutorial) (Fig.02).

Create the first material and call it

“SquarePlate_ShinyMetal” this will be our base

metal. Assign the “Machine_Reflection.jpg”

texture to the Diffuse and Reflect slots (Fig.03).

Now create the second material (call it

“SquarePlate_CoverMetal”) and assign the

texture called “Barometer_Plate_C_vcols.jpg”

in the Diffuse slot. Assign the “Barometer_

Plate_S_vcols.jpg” texture to the Reflect slot.

Set the Refl. Glossiness value to something like

0.74, enable the Fresnel Reflections option and

set the IOR value to 2.0 (Fig.04).

Now we need to assign the “Barometer_

Plate_A_vcols.jpg” texture to the first Blend

amount slot of the Square_Plate material. This

will allow us to blend between the two sub-

materials (Fig.05)

Do a quick render test to see what our material

looks like (Fig.06).

Let’s move on to work on a new material for the

circular frame of the gauge. This time it will be

a simple VRayMtl (call it “Gauge” or any other

meaningful name). Assign a new Mix map in

the Diffuse slot, and put the “Metal_02.jpg”



Lastly, assign the “Meter_Frame_B.jpg” texture

in the Bump channel. Do a quick render test to

check this material as well (Fig.07).

Create a new VRayMtl for the glass. Call it

“GaugeGlass”, then set its Diffuse color to white

and the Reflection to a medium gray. Enable the

Fresnel Reflections option. Also, set the Refract

color to pure white and assign the “Glass_Dirt.

jpg” texture to the Refract slot. Set the IOR

value for the refraction to about 1.45 (Fig.08).

Create a new material (this time a simple

Standard one) for the inner part of the gauge

and assign the “TempGauge.jpg” texture to

its Diffuse channel. We also need a simple

Standard material with a pure black Diffuse color

for the lancet (Fig.09).

Now we need a base material for all the screws

and bolts in the scene. We’ll start with just one

material and then we’ll create variations of it

(lighter, darker, shiny, weathered, etc). Create

a new VRayMtl and assign the “Machine_

Reflection.jpg” texture to both the Diffuse

and Reflect channels. Enable the Fresnel

Reflections option and set the Refl. Glossiness

value to 0.85 (Fig.10).

texture in the first slot of the mix; then use the

“Metal_01.jpg” texture for the second one.

Also, put the “Meter_Frame_A_vcols.jpg”

texture in the Mix Amount slot. Now assign

a new Output map both for the Reflect and

Ref. Glossiness channels; assign the “Meter_

Frame_A_vcols.jpg” texture to both of them (in

the Map slot), but don’t forget to set their Output

Amount values to 0.25 (Reflect) and 0.17 (Refl.

Glossiness) respectively.

In order to create the material for all the

rectangular plates in the bottom part of the

panel we’ll do something similar to the Square_

Plate material we made earlier. You can check

all the sub-materials and their parameters in

Fig.11.

Let’s create the material for the switches. Create

a new VRayMtl material and call it “Switch”.

Assign a new Mix map in the Diffuse slot.

Assign the “Metal_02” and “Metal_01” textures

to the first and second slots of the Mix map




The plastic material for the buttons is quite

simple. Create a new VRayMtl and mix the

“1.jpg” texture with a Falloff map. Set the Mix

amount to about 55. In the Falloff map, set

respectively. Use the “Switch_A_vcols.jpg”

texture to blend them. Assign an Output map in

the Reflect slot. Assign the “Switch_A_vcols.jpg”

texture to the map slot of the Output node, and

set its Output Amount to 0.3.

Do the same thing for the Refl. Glossiness

channel, but this time use a higher value like

0.25 for Output Amount. Assign a new Mix map

to the Bump slot of the Switch material, and use

it to mix a standard Noise map (with a very small

grain) and the “Switch_A_vcols.jpg” texture.

Also, use this texture to blend the two maps in

the Mix options (Fig.12).

For the knob base we’ll use a VRayBlendMtl to

blend two different VRayMtls (one for a shiny

metal and the other for a black paint). You can

see the parameters for this in Fig.13.

two variations of a same color (for example, in

Fig.14 there are a couple of orange variations).

Set the Refl. Glossiness value to around about

0.9.



Now we can duplicate the plastic material,

change its name and colors, and use the copies

to create some variations for the round buttons

(Fig.15).

We can use the same plastic materials for the

square buttons. Also, we can assign the same

shiny metal material we created earlier to the

square buttons’ base (Fig.16).

In order to create a different kind of metal

material for the bigger gauges we can start by

copying the shiny metal material and modifying

it a bit. For example, we can use a Mix map in

the Diffuse slot to blend a VRayColor map and a

texture. This will give our metal a different look,

(Fig.17).

We can repeat the same process, duplicating

and creating variations of existing materials.

For example, in Fig.18 you can see some

material variations built upon previously created

materials.

The last material we will create is the wood.

This time we will try to give this material a more

weathered look, while we’ll keep it quite polished

and shiny in the outer perimeter of the object.

Let’s start creating a new VRayMtl material.

Call it “Wood” and assign a new Mix map to

the Diffuse slot. Assign the “Wood.jpg” texture

to the first slot of the Mix map and then assign

the “WoodWeathered.jpg” texture to the second

one.

Mix the two maps using an Output map. Use

the “Wood_Plank_A_vcols.jpg” texture for the

Map slot of the Output. Create another Mix map

for the Reflect slot and this time use it to blend




a dark gray color with the “Wood_Bump.jpg”

texture; use “Wood_Plank_A_vcols.jpg” texture

as the Mix map. Now create a third Mix map

for the Bump channel and mix the textures as

shown in Fig.19.

Do a final rendering to check the whole scene

(Fig.20).

This concludes the second part of our tutorial.

Next time we’ll add a couple of objects and

create the last materials before the final

rendering setup.





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Welcome to the third and final part of this

tutorial. In previous issues we had a look at

how to create different kinds of materials and

shaders for the objects in our scene. Some

objects were left out last time for space reasons,

but you can find them in the new scene that’s

included in the downloadable resources for this

chapter: “Part3_Start.max”. Nothing special was

done about them; they share the same materials

used for the other elements in the older scenes.

Now that we have our scene complete, we can

start thinking about the final rendering. The first

step to take is picking a nice viewing angle for

the scene. Choose it carefully because it can

give your final result a very different mood.

The V-Ray Camera in the Part3_Start.max file

has already been set up with an angle of my

choice; feel free to experiment with different

camera angles and positions (Fig.01).

Make sure you don’t have any light source in

the scene; Part3_Start.max has already been

cleaned out and it does not have any light. We

have used a very basic light setup in the two

previous parts of this tutorial, just to be able to

work with materials and shaders, but now we

need to create our light rig from scratch.

Before we actually start working on lighting and

rendering, we need to talk about the “infamous”

linear workflow. For years, 3D artists used all

sort of tricks to enhance the lighting of their

renderings, mainly because, in interior scenes,

they were getting poor lighting from outside, so

they had to add in fake lights. Then someone

came up with linear workflow.

Basically, your 3D software and renderer (in

this case, 3ds Max and V-Ray) process your

rendering with a Gamma of 1.0 (that’s why

it’s called “linear”); chances are your monitor

though, will show your final rendered image with

they will be taken into account every time you

load a bitmap texture file in your materials’ slots.

Setting Input Gamma to 2.2 will ensure that your

texture will be loaded with a default gamma of

2.2.

Also, remember that textures used for bump

and normal maps don’t need to be gamma-

corrected. As a general rule, keep in mind that

everything affecting colors, in any way, should

be gamma-corrected (for example, diffuse

maps, color textures, simple colors, etc). Also,

HDRI maps usually don’t need to be gamma-

corrected to a 2.2 value.

Gamma 2.2. This makes your rendering look

“darker”, while it’s not dark at all. Using linear

workflow will solve this problem, but you have

to pay attention not only to the rendered image,

but to textures and materials as well.

There are a few steps to take to comfortably use

linear workflow in 3ds Max and V-Ray. First of

all, let’s see how to correct gamma settings in

order to better see materials and textures in the

Material Editor (otherwise, they may look very

dark in the Material Editor preview slots).

This step is optional, but if you need to fine-tune

your materials and shaders you wouldn’t be able

to correctly see the preview thumbnails in the

Material Editor.

Go to the Customize > Preferences menu and

look for the Gamma and LUT settings; enable

the Gamma/LUT Correction option and set the

Gamma value to 2.2. Make sure that both the

Affect Color Selectors and Affect Material Editor

options are enabled, and set the Input Gamma

value to 2.2 (Fig.02).

Please note that all these settings will be

ignored by V-Ray in the rendering phase, but



thus allowing us to better correct and enhance

tones and mid-tones later in Photoshop.

That’s it for the settings. We will talk about more

options later when we do our test renderings.

Let’s start working on the lighting. We will use

a basic VRaySun as our main light source.

Create a new VRaySun and point it as shown in

For all these kind of textures, make sure to

override the gamma value in the bitmap import

options (Fig.03).

All these steps have already been taken for

you in the Part3_Start.max scene file, but if

you need to modify or add new textures to an

existing material, now you know how to process

the different kinds of textures to be linear

workflow-friendly.

Now it’s time to tell V-Ray we want to use the

linear workflow. Although one may think that

enabling the Linear Workflow option in the Color

Mapping section is the right thing to do, it’s not.

In fact, we will not use that option at all. Instead,

set the Gamma value to 2.2 and enable the

Don’t affect colors option (Fig.04).

This last option we enabled will allow V-Ray not

to “burn” the gamma value directly in the image,

Fig.05. It will then ask you whether you want to

automatically add a VRaySky environment map;

answer Yes.

In order to do our first render test, we need

to use the V-Ray Frame Buffer instead of the

default one. Go to the V-Ray tab in the Render

Setup and tick the Enable built-in Frame Buffer

option (Fig.06).




The rendered image shown in the V-Ray frame

buffer looks way too dark; that’s because we’re

working with the linear workflow, so to actually

see the gamma-corrected picture we need to

enable the sRGB option in the Frame Buffer

(Fig.09).

Now let’s enable the GI. A good basic setup for

the GI would be using Irradiance map and Light

cache. Copy the settings from Fig.07.

Let’s do a render test to see how the light and

shaders are behaving with this setup (Fig.08).

Beside that, there are a couple of other things

we need to improve. Lighting is definitely one

of them: we need to create more dramatic

lighting for our scene. This is really up to you

and the mood you’re trying to achieve for your

final rendering; for example, we can give more



importance to some of the elements in the

scene making the sun light directly affect them.

Position the V-Ray sun light as shown in Fig.10.

Now render the scene again; it looks much

better (Fig.11).

Don’t worry about washed out areas or burned

out details, we will save the final rendering in

a special format that will allow us to control

brightness and exposure in Photoshop without

losing any information.

I’m not particularly happy with the reflection

effect on the machine’s desk. You can go back

to its reflection properties in the Material Editor

and fine-tune them until you get something you

like. If you need to improve or adjust any other

material, this is the best time to do it.

Now we have a realistic light situation, so you

can spot any problem with materials, textures

and reflections. You can use the Region Render

in the V-Ray Frame Buffer to decrease render

times while experimenting (Fig.12).

Now we can start setting up the final rendering.

The first thing to take care of is the quality of

the picture, and that means AA (anti-aliasing). I

will not discuss all the AA parameters in V-Ray

here, because it goes beyond the scope of this

tutorial, but you can do some Googling to find

out more about it.

For this example, I’ve used Fixed AA with a

subdivs value of 6. Make sure to increase

the subdivs for the glossy reflections of the

materials if you want to avoid noisy reflections.

Try to find a good compromise between quality

and render time.

Also, don’t forget to increase the GI quality (for

both Irradiance and Light cache).You can start

off by using the V-Ray quality presets for the

GI and then fine-tune the parameters as you

see fit. Finally, check out the V-Ray sun subdiv

parameters to get better soft shadows all over

your scene.




Whenever you’re ready, hit the Render button

and wait for 3ds Max and V-Ray to finish your

beauty pass (Fig.13).

Save the picture in OpenEXR format; it will

retain all the exposure, brightness and contrast

information you need to fine-tune the beauty

pass in Photoshop.

There are several ways to composite the final

picture. For example, you can render out every

single pass from V-Ray to Photoshop. In this

tutorial, we have just rendered one full beauty

pass and we are about to render two other

passes we will use later in Photoshop.

In order to render a pass, just go to the Render

Elements tab in the Render Setup window and

add everything you need there. For the scope

of this tutorial, just add a VRayZDepth and a

VRayObjectID pass.

To correctly set up the ZDepth pass, keep in

mind that you need to measure the distance

between the V-Ray camera and one of the

objects that will be in focus in the final picture;

then you have to do the same thing for an object

that will be slightly out of focus. Finally, you

need to put these two values in the VRayZDepth

pass options, respectively in the zdepth min and

zdepth max values (Fig.14).

The other pass (VRayObjectID) will be used

to isolate different object silhouettes. This is

particularly useful if you want to add more

details with textures blending in Photoshop. For

example, in this case we isolate some objects

we want to blend some textures onto. To assign

different Object ID to the objects, you need to

select the objects (either one by one or on a per

group basis) and use the Object Properties to

assign a new Object ID (Fig.15).

Moving to Photoshop for compositing, in Fig.16

you can see how the original VRayObjectID



pass can be used to easily select the silhouette

of a particular object; a new layer with a

scratches texture has been pasted into the

selection, to add some detail (on the right).

In Fig.17 a volumetric light pass has been

rendered in 3ds Max and added in Photoshop

as a new layer above everything else; this will

add some more realism to the final picture.

Finally, you need to add the ZDepth pass

to the Alpha channel of the picture, and use

Photoshop’s Lens Blur to add the depth of field

effect (Fig.18).

This concludes the tutorial series. I hope you

enjoyed it! (Fig.19).






Creating cartoon animals is a great starting point for anyone who is thinking about having a go at 3D. Cartoon animals are usually made up of shapes and forms that are fairly simple to model, and since realism is not the focus of this kind of work, it gives you an opportunity to be expressive and experimental at all points of the creative process. In this eBook the artists will be talking you through how to approach this task, firstly by concentrating on how to create your idea, but then moving on to the modeling, texturing and post-production. Each chapter provides you with an opportunity to see into the workflow of these outstanding industry professionals and learn valuable techniques you can use in your own workflow.

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Even some of the most modern forms of art are influenced by traditional techniques, methods and styles. With the arrival of ZBrush came an opportunity to put into practice many of the techniques that were used in classical sculpture by sculptors from some of the most recognizable periods in world history. In this tutorial series Rafael Ghencev will dissect the history of Greek and Roman sculpture and show you how to create an image in that style. Not only will Rafael talk you through the sculpting, but will also show how to texture and present your sculpt in a classical style. This series will also give some great anatomy tips, and provide you with some great tricks to help you present your sculpts.

Original Author: 3DTotal.com Ltd | Platform: ZBrush | Format: DOWNLOAD ONLY PDF | Pages: 30

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realistic shaders ebook

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vrayblendmtl material

kind of material

basic material metal

basic metal material

material editor

simple vray light

vray physical camera

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