For anyone curious this is an image of the final node setup for this material: imgur.com/a/mxDlzUS And while you're here; if you wish to support the channel, please join the Patreon -> www.patreon.com/kaizentutorials
Thank you for taking the time to do this Jesse! There was quite a lot of different parameters that needed changing from the video, but my main issue I spent all morning trying to solve was getting some of the edges to remain yellow paint, which I solved by removing the clamp box in the first map node, so easy to miss.... but all good now :))
Great tutorial! Thanks for posting the image of the final node setup. I followed the tutorial carefully, but wasn't getting the same results. After adjusting the settings, the results are much better. Wasn't seeing any bare metal on the worn edges originally.
First of all, thanks for compacting this info into a single video. I was effectively trying to make materials like this in other ways without realizing it, so it's nice to have a solid method for this. To extend this method further for importing it into video games: You can bake the texture using the UV map. Firstly, make a new image node in the texture that is not connected to anything and make sure it is selected. For every new image you make (diffuse, normal, etc.), you'll need to generate a new one. Then, under the Render Properties tab (while using Cycles) and "Bake" section, you can set the "Bake Type" to "Diffuse" and select only color to get color, and there are other modes there to extract your AO, shadow, normal, roughness, gloss, etc. You can also use this method to generate a new UV map for re-mapping an existing texture. I do believe that for most of these though, that you do need to have even world lighting. You can do this by going to the World Properties tab and then just setting the color to pure white. I use this method with an orthographic camera to generate a color and normal map to have 3D-looking images as planes. These are a bunch of things I learned from Kaizen and others, and I felt like it's a good segue from this video to show what you can do next.
Thank you! And thanks for the in depth comment on baking. You’re absolutely right and it’s great to be able to use these materials in other engines. The only thing that I would like to add; you need to bake the EMIT value for each texture map. This will make sure you get solid colors without lighting. So if you have lighting in your scene it doesn’t matter at all! I baked this scene with all lights in it for example but they didn’t change my texture at all ;-)
Solid video. The only suggestion I'd make (aside from cutting the gradient mask and separating the the two colors into their own materials so it can be used on more than just this specific object), is that "Distance" is a better way to adjust the intensity of bump maps, not "Strength." Strength makes the slopes shallower while Distance only affects the height of the effect (which is usually what we want).
Thank you so much. I'm a beginer and this really helped me to make my textures much more realistic. I was strugling with making an old wooden church, but I had no idea how to make it look old and worn out. Now it looks like an actual building and not just a pristine plastic building with a wood texture. :)
I appreciate you describing what ambient occlusion actually is. A lot of people these days only describe it as a shader to get dirt in crevices, but that's really a secondary popular use.
Thanks! Yeah ambient occlusion is so much more. In gaming it’s the perfect, cheap, way to get great depth and additional shadowing. I always turn it on in every game setting if possible haha
Yeah I learned it as the shadow made by an overlapping object, or where two objects meet. The dirt use seems a bit weird to me but I need more experience.
@@RickHenderson its because where two objects usually meet as you wrote, thats where you get "dirt" in real life... since if its on "plain surface", it gets washed out by water/rain, or blown out by wind etc. But "where two objects meet" there is already some "barrier" to prevent the dirt/dust etc. from getting away... Thats why its usefull to use ambient occlusion map for "dirt"
As a thank for this useful info - quick tip from a pro sound guy. To reduce unwanted low- and mid-low frequencies reverberation on your voice you can EQ it a little bit to remove some resonances of your room. For instance in DaVinci - on your voiceover track double-click on EQ, set Equalizer type to "Ice", on the Band 3 section set the Frequency knob to 155 Hz, Gain to "-8.0" dB, and Q Factor to 5.0. Then go to Band 4, switch its frequency to ML, set Frequency parameter to 260 Hz, Gain to "-7" dB, and cranck the Q Factor all the way up to 10.3. Feel free to play around with these values (but very careful with frequencies), but they are a good starting point for your particular voice, mic, and room. Of course, it's better to sound-treat the room or use more advanced plugins, but EQ is a quick and free method to make these resonances less audible.
Thanks so much! I’m almost done with the new vid and just switched to davinci from premiere. And I was looking for ways to improve my audio! So this is perfect timing. 🖤🙏🏻
Pointiness only shows up when you're viewing in rendered mode so if you're seeing just one solid color for the curvature map, make sure you switch to rendered viewing.
A modeled a little low poly robot that I planned on hand painting to look rusted and worn out, this just saved me so much time. A smart material and a bake to a lower res texture will do beautifully. Thank you!
Very useful video, and I actually feel like I'm slowly getting the hang of how the texture nodes work because I've had trouble with them for so long. Great work man
For simplification the dot product is basically just finding where the normals of the object change. When those normals change the dot product (strength and direction similarity measurement) drop. That's why it can be used to find edges, the normals are changing, the dot product drops, you've found and edge.
Quick note about ColorRamps, if you can use a MapRange instead switch to that because ColorRamps adds up to shader compute time (although ColorRamps are pretty handy)
I'm still very early into my Blender journey, but this tutorial has so much useful information compacted in so little time. Definitely going to watch it multiple times to soak it in.
New favorite channel!! Of all the other blender tutorial channels I've watched. This is the first one that has actually been useful. I feel like anyone can pick up modeling easily, but shading and rendering a nice looking model is the real hard part. Can't thank you enough for sharing this.
Awesome. I was JUST looking at an addon which would help me to really complicate my texturing/shading knowledge in Blender (you can likely guess which one ). This tutorial gives an awesome concise perspective on just how actually valuable such an addon might be. It seems that, with just a bit of effort and understanding of the workflow you present here, most of what I thought I needed to buy an addon for is actually doable for free like this in Blender as is. The addon might let me manage many layers of what you have shown here but I am not at a need level that requires something like that at the moment.
Thanks! Yeah I agree that at a basic level this works perfectly. Addons can make your life a lot easier since they’ll save you time. But that’s only a must if you do this enough!
Materializer? :D I've been doing materials in a way similair to this video. But since I got that plugin it saved me a lot of time. Yeah it can all be done for free but for me it's 100% worth it.
This was one of the best material tutorials I have seen on using Blender. And I know probably the best smart material tutorial using any software other than Substance products. Also, it was a great math primer on sine and cosine explanations of the shader nodes. Now I’m going to have to subscribe to this channel. ❤❤❤😮😮😮
My head almost blown up with what you where doing, in other words i got confused but also impressed as i am an Indie Developer im faling in love with Blender every day and want to learn more.
Though I much prefer Sub Painter for texturing, it is very cool to see that Blender can pull off great textures as well. I think the hardest thing for most people will be deciding if working with layers or nodes is easier to pick up.
Yeah, I think both have their usecases. Painter will always be better for texturing because it's a specialized tool vs. a more general tool like Blender, which needs to be good on too many different aspects. But yeah choosing between the two can be difficult, especially seeing the Substance price lol.
It might be a little late, but I noticed while using this for dirt on a rally car that the edge wear and highlights should go before the AO dirt during the setup for the smart materials. When the AO dirt is the first in the order of the effects, it gets covered by the highlights and edge wear. Otherwise, amazing tutorial. I am relatively new to Blender, and this tutorial has greatly helped me. (: you got a new subscriber ^-^ Edit: I wanted to also say that I followed along in 4.2.1 LTS, and it still works flawlessly.
I know nothing about how to make smart materials, and I think that I wont remember a thing from this tutorial, but the knowledge you have is absolutely impressive!
what you don't say is that these materials are not textures unlike substance. You can't just export them to another program. If you need to create a lot of game assets quickly, this is not the best solution as you will need to bake everything and if you don't have a beast pc, it can take minutes or hours just for the baking part
You’re right that they’re actually procedural. I think that’s why they’re so great. Baking can take some time but it’s the only way to do it I guess. Baking (exporting) in Substance also takes time + substance is pretty heavy in itself. So to me it’s about equal in that respect. Substance is easier to work with though and has many more options! So for professional level assets I’d stick with Substance. But this is perfect for background assets and stuff where you want to create some simple differentiation! 🙏🏻
@@KaizenTutorials I was just talking about game workflows but of course when we talk about renders and building blender-only scenes, then your tutorial is awesome 👍
@@KaizenTutorials actually, i don't have the fastest GPU, it's a 4gb one, and Substance runs smoothly. The baking? Record time compared to Blender. Yes, depends on the material on Blender, but still, for complex masking and with many 4k texture, substance is unbeatable. But it's another workflow and it's another use :), i like some Blender materials more, for that procedural generation tho, and would like to have them on SP (i don't use SP, i have school (fake) license, nothing more than trying it on my PC right now, I'll probably buy the 2023 version on steam when it will come out)
@@NightVisionOfficial Yeah it's right to say they both have their uses in different scenarios. Substance is truly amazing and a real gamechanger. Just the fact that the materials in Blender require 0 UV unwrapping is very powerful though. So it has a future, especially looking at AI generated models.
@@KaizenTutorials If even just UE5 would allow for something like that to be used, it would be awesome. The problem right now is that even tho we have this option, you either don't need to export (use only blender to render scenes and what not), or you make UVs and bake :/ . I'm an UE user, also the market is better than just having Blender as the running program. I hope they get more in touch with each other, and make this happen. Imagine taking Sanctus materials and use them natively on UE xD. But i guess it's not really a thing when it comes to Gaming, since procedural materials that are not baked, means they take time on the render and not really easy to run
I have a tutorial on baking procedural textures in Blender! It's a bit older and obviously not related to this specific material/mesh, but the concept is the same and can be applied to any material (like this one) in Blender! 💪 You can check out the video here; ruclips.net/video/G5soIHt7ofU/видео.html
Great video, always find these kinds of materials are excellent for things that aren't "hero" assets too, like making generic metals, plastics etc to populate a scene faster. And saving a general wear/tear or surface imperfections node setup to apply to new materials. Also fun when you change the main diffuse colour based on object ID too, as well as the offsets for noises/roughness imperfections, so every time you duplicate something it's a new variation! I'm curious what the render time difference is of the procedural node setup vs when you bake them out as images? I've had mixed results with this, sometimes the nodes actually perform faster than image maps depending on how complex things go there's a sweet spot for sure.
That’s a great idea! Also really like the object ID thing as a way to randomize stuff more. Like you said it’s perfect for background asset stuff. Obviously hero assets deserve a quality, specialized texture 💪🏻 Rendertimes for these we’re a total of about 13 seconds per frame at 2560x1440, 4096 samples, 0.1 noise threshold. I did bake the maps as well but then I did EEVEE renders which took about 0.5 seconds per frame. I believe I tried Cycles as well but there was no obvious difference on the render time vs the procedural setup!
@@KaizenTutorials It's pretty fun solving these kinda problems and then it also being efficient memory/re-use wise. Definitely a lot to learn from games for these tips and how they construct levels efficiently out of modular pieces or how they deal with tiling, large assets, and variations. I learnt a lot from the latest Kitbash 3D free pack too, mostly about texturing large assets effectively with trim sheets/tiling maps 👍especially the cargo ship if you ever check it out, very clever UV's and use of textures. Ah nice, that's good to know! I'm sure there's a threshold where maps will be faster but it seems like it'd take a lot to reach that then which is great news. I love being lazy with procedurals and not unwrapping things 😂
@@Matt-fo4gg Yeah there's tons to learn from the Gaming industry for sure. And cool, maybe I'll check it out soon. Procedural is really cool for sure. I think it will always be lighter on VRAM vs. textures. But I'm not sure. Computers are just made for tons of calculations and procedural stuff is mostly mathematics!
Thank you for uploading this!! Jumping between programs is a pain in the butt. I love shading in blender so I will start using these tips in my next renders
So I had kinda headache when he jumped to geometry nodes but all I can say is THANKS. Because I've watched countless tutorials about texturing and they always get so detailled that they will make a 2 hours video only for one step but YOU, my friend..... explained it straight to the point and in a easy way to follow. Thanks bro, can't thank you enough.
*Hot take:* I'm not against the idea of blender getting a paid tier but NOT for limiting features! Something like unreal engine where if you're a big corporation you need a license if you're gonna make a profit while using their software :) I think this could help the blender team push more and better features. To make it fair, it could be a percentage of the creators revenue going to the blender foundation.
Yes and more flexible! But this is procedural. No need for UV unwrapping and it updates automatically on your mesh. So it’s a pretty convenient way of working in Blender 👍🏻
If you've never used the ambient occlusion node, the first time you use it, blender will be stuck loading render kernels for like 8 minutes. Just wait. It will eventually go back to normal.
@@KaizenTutorials A little. I still don't understand where all the nodes fit in the end, where I put Ambient Occlusion, and the others. I'll watch the video more closely, however, your tutorial is great.
@@KaizenTutorials well, you really crap a whole bunch of nodes, so beginners won’t understand anything with this explanation, many of them did not even fully understand what and where to connect
Lost for words... Just to say your wealth of knowledge to educate us all about the nodes to tweak for bringing the desired result never gets old - I keep this tutorials for posterity... Thanks a million... 👌👌👌👍❤️
this is a bomb to my brain as a trying to learn 3D but those layering (nodes) is somehow can be very helpful for future use so I'll keep it on my list and force myself to feed my brain with all of this information. Thanks!
I started showing this to my friends who play Warhammer 40k and other tabletop games for how to paint their miniatures. As it turns out a lot of the techniques that skilled mini painters use are similar to how these smart materials work!
Really nice workflow! You can add lighter and darker areas better by using a relative operation. Instead of mixing darker and lighter colors, you can change the Saturation and Value of your existing color. It's even possible to calculate the gradient relative to the object dimensions. This just show powerful Blender can be with materials, even if not perfectly intuitively ,
@@KaizenTutorials yeah it was very clear I would like to ask that starting screens which you have used in your video are made in blender or in other software .if the answer is blender please could you explain how did you make please.
up until now i used to think those textures were hand painted! This is so amazing and would save a lot of time. I believe other surface imperfections like glass fingerprints and cracks are also possible with this technique! Smeaf and you should do a competition about who can make more memeified blender tutorial videos lol
Thank you! Yeah you should be able to add about anything using these principles. And haha yeah well I know who would win that battle hands down, and it ain't me ;-)
I already find the nodes screen the most intimidating part of Blender, and this is one dense tutorial. Though I was wondering, since it's a procedural texture, it's not possible to move let's say part of the yellow geometry below the dividing line, or it'll turn gray, right? Then you'd have to make separate gray and yellow materials.
You're right. You can't move the geometry or it'll become gray. You can however move it and then change the color mask to match up with the new geometry. You can also create a UV Unwrap specifically for the color mask. So unwrap the model, apply the right colors to the right parts of the mesh and use the UV Texture Coordinate as the input for the color. This way you can retain proceduralness over all the smart masks but have more flexibility in changing the geometry!
I have been going backwards and forwards so many times in this video that my smooth brain knows the entire script now 😂 The knowledge shared is great. The rhythm, edition, and script structure are just awesome. Keep up the great job!
For anyone curious this is an image of the final node setup for this material: imgur.com/a/mxDlzUS
And while you're here; if you wish to support the channel, please join the Patreon -> www.patreon.com/kaizentutorials
Thank you for taking the time to do this Jesse! There was quite a lot of different parameters that needed changing from the video, but my main issue I spent all morning trying to solve was getting some of the edges to remain yellow paint, which I solved by removing the clamp box in the first map node, so easy to miss.... but all good now :))
No worries, glad it helps. And yeah that’s usually what gets ya haha one single small thing!
Great tutorial! Thanks for posting the image of the final node setup. I followed the tutorial carefully, but wasn't getting the same results. After adjusting the settings, the results are much better. Wasn't seeing any bare metal on the worn edges originally.
Also keep in mind that unless the Ambient Occlusion node is set to only local, it's dirt map will change every time you move it or objects around it.
Good addition, but yeah that's absolutely true!
Good call, thanks
That's why I like to bake the Ambient Occlusion data, either manually or using an addon.
jack jack jack... youre everywhere
..
you could bake the texture in order to fix the issue
First of all, thanks for compacting this info into a single video. I was effectively trying to make materials like this in other ways without realizing it, so it's nice to have a solid method for this.
To extend this method further for importing it into video games: You can bake the texture using the UV map.
Firstly, make a new image node in the texture that is not connected to anything and make sure it is selected. For every new image you make (diffuse, normal, etc.), you'll need to generate a new one. Then, under the Render Properties tab (while using Cycles) and "Bake" section, you can set the "Bake Type" to "Diffuse" and select only color to get color, and there are other modes there to extract your AO, shadow, normal, roughness, gloss, etc. You can also use this method to generate a new UV map for re-mapping an existing texture.
I do believe that for most of these though, that you do need to have even world lighting. You can do this by going to the World Properties tab and then just setting the color to pure white. I use this method with an orthographic camera to generate a color and normal map to have 3D-looking images as planes.
These are a bunch of things I learned from Kaizen and others, and I felt like it's a good segue from this video to show what you can do next.
Thank you! And thanks for the in depth comment on baking. You’re absolutely right and it’s great to be able to use these materials in other engines. The only thing that I would like to add; you need to bake the EMIT value for each texture map. This will make sure you get solid colors without lighting. So if you have lighting in your scene it doesn’t matter at all! I baked this scene with all lights in it for example but they didn’t change my texture at all ;-)
@@KaizenTutorials it would be great if you do a tutorial on this!
I have one on my channel 🙌🏻 it’s focused on a different type of material but the same principles apply 🙏🏻
@@KaizenTutorials great! Thanks for answering! Keep up this amazing videos!
@@KaizenTutorials dude, you're a God in 3d!
Solid video. The only suggestion I'd make (aside from cutting the gradient mask and separating the the two colors into their own materials so it can be used on more than just this specific object), is that "Distance" is a better way to adjust the intensity of bump maps, not "Strength." Strength makes the slopes shallower while Distance only affects the height of the effect (which is usually what we want).
Great tip! Thanks for letting me know, I didn’t know ❣️
Thank you so much. I'm a beginer and this really helped me to make my textures much more realistic.
I was strugling with making an old wooden church, but I had no idea how to make it look old and worn out. Now it looks like an actual building and not just a pristine plastic building with a wood texture. :)
Glad I could help! 🤗
I appreciate you describing what ambient occlusion actually is. A lot of people these days only describe it as a shader to get dirt in crevices, but that's really a secondary popular use.
Thanks! Yeah ambient occlusion is so much more. In gaming it’s the perfect, cheap, way to get great depth and additional shadowing. I always turn it on in every game setting if possible haha
Yeah I learned it as the shadow made by an overlapping object, or where two objects meet. The dirt use seems a bit weird to me but I need more experience.
@@RickHenderson its because where two objects usually meet as you wrote, thats where you get "dirt" in real life... since if its on "plain surface", it gets washed out by water/rain, or blown out by wind etc. But "where two objects meet" there is already some "barrier" to prevent the dirt/dust etc. from getting away...
Thats why its usefull to use ambient occlusion map for "dirt"
Excellent tutorial. I learned a lot!
Glad to hear it, thanks a lot for your support!
Wow your starting screen is awesome
Thanks!
Its professional
U mean his thumbnail?
Yeah
As a thank for this useful info - quick tip from a pro sound guy. To reduce unwanted low- and mid-low frequencies reverberation on your voice you can EQ it a little bit to remove some resonances of your room. For instance in DaVinci - on your voiceover track double-click on EQ, set Equalizer type to "Ice", on the Band 3 section set the Frequency knob to 155 Hz, Gain to "-8.0" dB, and Q Factor to 5.0. Then go to Band 4, switch its frequency to ML, set Frequency parameter to 260 Hz, Gain to "-7" dB, and cranck the Q Factor all the way up to 10.3. Feel free to play around with these values (but very careful with frequencies), but they are a good starting point for your particular voice, mic, and room. Of course, it's better to sound-treat the room or use more advanced plugins, but EQ is a quick and free method to make these resonances less audible.
Thanks so much! I’m almost done with the new vid and just switched to davinci from premiere. And I was looking for ways to improve my audio! So this is perfect timing. 🖤🙏🏻
2:42 Wow, that single-handedly does a great job explaining what each output is. I need to play around with those outputs more.
Thanks!
Finally, a tutorial that won't take too long to watch, I've done other videos but they're hard to follow
Love to hear it!
This will be a great reference, thank you. Nodes of any sort are probably my biggest challenge.
No problem, glad it helps. Nodes are difficult, for sure. But once you use them enough you’ll get the hang of them.
bro this is a goated tutorial. the fact that this could be used to make basically any shader for any 3d model is insane!!!!!!
Pointiness only shows up when you're viewing in rendered mode so if you're seeing just one solid color for the curvature map, make sure you switch to rendered viewing.
Yeah that's true! Good one.
Thank you, I was wondering what was wrong
Thank you! That's what happened to me!
Very useful, thanks
Thanks for this, I ran into this trying to follow along
A modeled a little low poly robot that I planned on hand painting to look rusted and worn out, this just saved me so much time. A smart material and a bake to a lower res texture will do beautifully. Thank you!
Awesome! Glad I could help :-)
Hands down the best texturing tutorial I have seen in a long time. Subbed
Awesome, thank you!
Thanks!
Thanks Simon!
One of the best blender channel out there, i'm really using this tutorial to sharpen my skill, thanks!
Thanks a lot for the kind words!
your ability to clarify complex subjects is unparalleled!
Thanks a lot!
The way you manage all the nodes and their uses is very much appreciated and hope you will do more and more on shader in a blender. Cheers
Thanks, will do!
wow
Hands down the best and most compact tutorial I've seen in a long time! Keep up the good work👌
Very useful video, and I actually feel like I'm slowly getting the hang of how the texture nodes work because I've had trouble with them for so long. Great work man
Thank you! Glad this video helped you out a little. 😁
How’s useful, what did you learn ? Texture? So did you apply it on your model?
For simplification the dot product is basically just finding where the normals of the object change. When those normals change the dot product (strength and direction similarity measurement) drop. That's why it can be used to find edges, the normals are changing, the dot product drops, you've found and edge.
Aah ok that makes sense (sortof lol)!
Quick note about ColorRamps, if you can use a MapRange instead switch to that because ColorRamps adds up to shader compute time (although ColorRamps are pretty handy)
Very true! I tried using as few as possible but sometimes you just need them for ease of use or control 🙌🏻
Both look good. Depends on the look you are going for really. For example low poly.
Very true! This isnt for every model for sure
I'm still very early into my Blender journey, but this tutorial has so much useful information compacted in so little time. Definitely going to watch it multiple times to soak it in.
Great to hear! Happy Blending!
Thanks
Thanks a lot! Appreciate the support 💪❤
a tip for this is to also use vertex color to isolate certain areas of the mesh, and use that as masks too
Great addition!
That wouldn't be procedural anymore nor act like a smart material.
@@xanzulsthat's not true
How is this not talked about more?! I just learned the answers to so many problems in under 12 minutes 😂 Brilliant!
Haha thanks! Appreciate it.
New favorite channel!!
Of all the other blender tutorial channels I've watched. This is the first one that has actually been useful. I feel like anyone can pick up modeling easily, but shading and rendering a nice looking model is the real hard part. Can't thank you enough for sharing this.
Thanks a lot for the kind words. Glad my content helps you improve as an artist! 💪
What an epic video! Thanks for posting it. Before watching this, all my textures were so bland but now, they can look awesome!
Thanks a lot!
Isso é algo inacreditável! Eu não sabia que tava pra fazer tanto coisa só com um tutorial de 20 minutos!
Muito obrigado!
No problem! 🙌🏻
Most useful and learnable tutorial I have ever seen towards graduation of beginner.
Wow, thanks!
Awesome.
I was JUST looking at an addon which would help me to really complicate my texturing/shading knowledge in Blender (you can likely guess which one ).
This tutorial gives an awesome concise perspective on just how actually valuable such an addon might be. It seems that, with just a bit of effort and understanding of the workflow you present here, most of what I thought I needed to buy an addon for is actually doable for free like this in Blender as is.
The addon might let me manage many layers of what you have shown here but I am not at a need level that requires something like that at the moment.
Thanks! Yeah I agree that at a basic level this works perfectly. Addons can make your life a lot easier since they’ll save you time. But that’s only a must if you do this enough!
Materializer? :D I've been doing materials in a way similair to this video. But since I got that plugin it saved me a lot of time. Yeah it can all be done for free but for me it's 100% worth it.
You could also get substance painter lol :D
Oh my GAAAAD. My mind is blown everytime I learn something new about nodes. Thank you so much! That was a great tutorial.
You're very welcome and thanks for the kind words!
This was one of the best material tutorials I have seen on using Blender. And I know probably the best smart material tutorial using any software other than Substance products. Also, it was a great math primer on sine and cosine explanations of the shader nodes. Now I’m going to have to subscribe to this channel. ❤❤❤😮😮😮
Thanks! Glad to hear you like it and thanks for subbing!
My head almost blown up with what you where doing, in other words i got confused but also impressed as i am an Indie Developer im faling in love with Blender every day and want to learn more.
Haha sorry I made your head hurt! Glad you like the vid and Blender though.
Though I much prefer Sub Painter for texturing, it is very cool to see that Blender can pull off great textures as well. I think the hardest thing for most people will be deciding if working with layers or nodes is easier to pick up.
Yeah, I think both have their usecases. Painter will always be better for texturing because it's a specialized tool vs. a more general tool like Blender, which needs to be good on too many different aspects. But yeah choosing between the two can be difficult, especially seeing the Substance price lol.
It might be a little late, but I noticed while using this for dirt on a rally car that the edge wear and highlights should go before the AO dirt during the setup for the smart materials. When the AO dirt is the first in the order of the effects, it gets covered by the highlights and edge wear.
Otherwise, amazing tutorial. I am relatively new to Blender, and this tutorial has greatly helped me. (:
you got a new subscriber ^-^
Edit: I wanted to also say that I followed along in 4.2.1 LTS, and it still works flawlessly.
I tell how much effort you put into this video. truly exceptional! Keep going!
Thanks a lot!
Great video and explanation on how to create various aspects of the masks to help in achieving a more realistic look for your models! Well done!
Thank you, glad you like it 🙏🏻
I know nothing about how to make smart materials, and I think that I wont remember a thing from this tutorial, but the knowledge you have is absolutely impressive!
Haha thanks but it looks more impressive than it is I think! Just try doing it a couple times and you’ll remember it for sure.
what you don't say is that these materials are not textures unlike substance. You can't just export them to another program. If you need to create a lot of game assets quickly, this is not the best solution as you will need to bake everything and if you don't have a beast pc, it can take minutes or hours just for the baking part
You’re right that they’re actually procedural. I think that’s why they’re so great. Baking can take some time but it’s the only way to do it I guess. Baking (exporting) in Substance also takes time + substance is pretty heavy in itself. So to me it’s about equal in that respect. Substance is easier to work with though and has many more options! So for professional level assets I’d stick with Substance. But this is perfect for background assets and stuff where you want to create some simple differentiation! 🙏🏻
@@KaizenTutorials I was just talking about game workflows but of course when we talk about renders and building blender-only scenes, then your tutorial is awesome 👍
@@KaizenTutorials actually, i don't have the fastest GPU, it's a 4gb one, and Substance runs smoothly. The baking? Record time compared to Blender. Yes, depends on the material on Blender, but still, for complex masking and with many 4k texture, substance is unbeatable. But it's another workflow and it's another use :), i like some Blender materials more, for that procedural generation tho, and would like to have them on SP (i don't use SP, i have school (fake) license, nothing more than trying it on my PC right now, I'll probably buy the 2023 version on steam when it will come out)
@@NightVisionOfficial Yeah it's right to say they both have their uses in different scenarios. Substance is truly amazing and a real gamechanger. Just the fact that the materials in Blender require 0 UV unwrapping is very powerful though. So it has a future, especially looking at AI generated models.
@@KaizenTutorials If even just UE5 would allow for something like that to be used, it would be awesome. The problem right now is that even tho we have this option, you either don't need to export (use only blender to render scenes and what not), or you make UVs and bake :/ . I'm an UE user, also the market is better than just having Blender as the running program. I hope they get more in touch with each other, and make this happen. Imagine taking Sanctus materials and use them natively on UE xD. But i guess it's not really a thing when it comes to Gaming, since procedural materials that are not baked, means they take time on the render and not really easy to run
OMG you are a texture GOD. Wow, I am using these principles for so many things. So awesome. Thanks!
Wow, thanks!
Would be awesome with a follow up tutorial showing how to export this material as texture maps that can be used in Eevee, Unity, Unreal etc.
I have a tutorial on baking procedural textures in Blender! It's a bit older and obviously not related to this specific material/mesh, but the concept is the same and can be applied to any material (like this one) in Blender! 💪 You can check out the video here; ruclips.net/video/G5soIHt7ofU/видео.html
Hey I have been an on/off Blender user . after seeing your videos. i am getting inspired to make my own Blender World .. THANK YOU !!
Great to hear! Good luck on your journey
Great video, always find these kinds of materials are excellent for things that aren't "hero" assets too, like making generic metals, plastics etc to populate a scene faster. And saving a general wear/tear or surface imperfections node setup to apply to new materials. Also fun when you change the main diffuse colour based on object ID too, as well as the offsets for noises/roughness imperfections, so every time you duplicate something it's a new variation!
I'm curious what the render time difference is of the procedural node setup vs when you bake them out as images?
I've had mixed results with this, sometimes the nodes actually perform faster than image maps depending on how complex things go there's a sweet spot for sure.
That’s a great idea! Also really like the object ID thing as a way to randomize stuff more. Like you said it’s perfect for background asset stuff. Obviously hero assets deserve a quality, specialized texture 💪🏻
Rendertimes for these we’re a total of about 13 seconds per frame at 2560x1440, 4096 samples, 0.1 noise threshold. I did bake the maps as well but then I did EEVEE renders which took about 0.5 seconds per frame. I believe I tried Cycles as well but there was no obvious difference on the render time vs the procedural setup!
@@KaizenTutorials It's pretty fun solving these kinda problems and then it also being efficient memory/re-use wise. Definitely a lot to learn from games for these tips and how they construct levels efficiently out of modular pieces or how they deal with tiling, large assets, and variations.
I learnt a lot from the latest Kitbash 3D free pack too, mostly about texturing large assets effectively with trim sheets/tiling maps 👍especially the cargo ship if you ever check it out, very clever UV's and use of textures.
Ah nice, that's good to know! I'm sure there's a threshold where maps will be faster but it seems like it'd take a lot to reach that then which is great news. I love being lazy with procedurals and not unwrapping things 😂
@@Matt-fo4gg Yeah there's tons to learn from the Gaming industry for sure. And cool, maybe I'll check it out soon.
Procedural is really cool for sure. I think it will always be lighter on VRAM vs. textures. But I'm not sure. Computers are just made for tons of calculations and procedural stuff is mostly mathematics!
This is great! Node wizardry at it's finest 💪
Thanks dude! Can't beat some Blender node magic amiright?
Thank you for uploading this!! Jumping between programs is a pain in the butt. I love shading in blender so I will start using these tips in my next renders
You’re welcome! Glad it was useful to you
so many shading videos I have watched none can compare to this. Thanks a lot
Thank you so much 😀
In Blender 3.41, Mix RGB is now called: Mix Color
Yess! No idea why they changed it, but they did. Thanks for sharing!
@@KaizenTutorials yes, but if we connect the nodes using node wrangler, the older Mix RGB one pops up
@MrTalixx I've got 3.41, there is no Mix Color
I found it, Search does not work, do an Add, Color, Mix Color
@@mystery_guy Thank you!
You can also use an inverted ('Inside' = checked) ambient occlusion node for cavity
Nice one! ❣️
As of blender 3.4 the "Mix RGB" node is no longer available to use, really annoying. other than that great tutorial!
It’s probably changed it’s name. I can’t imagine they removed it!
I like the Bevel Node-Normal-Dot Product method for getting the edge mask. I hadn't seen that before today.
Yeah it's a pretty cool technique! I learned it from Riley Brown.
Trying to watch and understand this as a beginner lmaoo 🤕🤕🤕🤕🤕🤕
I'm going a tad fast yeah lol
E eu que nem tenho computador ainda e não entendo inglês, mais assisto os vídeos para me inspirar e quando tiver o computador iniciar os trabalhos 😁
@@KaizenTutorials It’s not that, you’re just not explaining what everything does.
So I had kinda headache when he jumped to geometry nodes but all I can say is THANKS. Because I've watched countless tutorials about texturing and they always get so detailled that they will make a 2 hours video only for one step but YOU, my friend..... explained it straight to the point and in a easy way to follow. Thanks bro, can't thank you enough.
Glad to hear you like it and found it useful!
*Hot take:*
I'm not against the idea of blender getting a paid tier but NOT for limiting features!
Something like unreal engine where if you're a big corporation you need a license if you're gonna make a profit while using their software :)
I think this could help the blender team push more and better features.
To make it fair, it could be a percentage of the creators revenue going to the blender foundation.
It's not a bad idea! But I do feel like they'll add everything eventually anyways, for free. Just might take a bit of time!
Thanks a lot! I was searching for some approaches to make realistic materials all in blender with the shader nodes. This video really helped me a lot❤
Great to hear and glad it was helpful!
Isn't all this easier in 3D coat, Quixel etc?
Yes and more flexible! But this is procedural. No need for UV unwrapping and it updates automatically on your mesh. So it’s a pretty convenient way of working in Blender 👍🏻
@@KaizenTutorials right 👍
Awesome video!!! this type of content that makes Blender Community the best!! Perfect Tut!!
Wow, thanks!
If you've never used the ambient occlusion node, the first time you use it, blender will be stuck loading render kernels for like 8 minutes. Just wait. It will eventually go back to normal.
Haha yeah good one! Loading render kernels can take pretty long, even on powerful machines.
Ευχαριστούμε!
οριστέ! Thank you for the support. I really appreciate it!
Sorry, I've been using Blender for three months for work, but this tutorial is completely confusing to me.
Sorry to hear that. Is it too fast or…?
@@KaizenTutorials A little. I still don't understand where all the nodes fit in the end, where I put Ambient Occlusion, and the others. I'll watch the video more closely, however, your tutorial is great.
YES YES YES THIS I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR FOR 3 YEARS BRO! THIS AMAZING HOLY SHIT I LOVE YOU
Lol haha glad I could provide what you we're looking for!
I use blender every day professionally and there is so much good packed in this video , great work , solid subscribe
Thank you and thanks for the sub, appreciate it!
i love how he just doesnt explain literally anything. just plugs in things off camera then expects us to know what he did. really helpful.
💀
@@KaizenTutorials well, you really crap a whole bunch of nodes, so beginners won’t understand anything with this explanation, many of them did not even fully understand what and where to connect
Who said this is a tutorial for beginners?
I seriously don't have enough words to thank you.
Glad you like it, and a regular thank you is more than enough! ;-)
This is the ultimate tutorial to rule them all. Love it
Wow, thank you!
This is amazing! I’m gonna need to go over it a couple times but this is a master class! Tnx kaizen!
Thank you, appreciate the kind words!
Lost for words... Just to say your wealth of knowledge to educate us all about the nodes to tweak for bringing the desired result never gets old - I keep this tutorials for posterity... Thanks a million... 👌👌👌👍❤️
Wow, thank you!
for real, You got me clicking on a new video after every video I watch. This is so cool mann. and of course, I followed up from another video HEHE
That’s awesome, thanks! Glad you like my videos 🙌🏻🤗
this video is amazing! i thought this was so hard, i had no idea it was so straightforward! thanks man
Glad you liked it! Thanks!
Awesome tutorial, explained perfectly, thank you Kaizen!
Thanks a lot for the kind words!
Maaan thank you so much, I've been struggling for so long and that vídeo helps a lot
Glad to hear it!
Brilliant as always!
Grazie mile Michelangelo!
Amazing tutorial! Made me understand how nodes work. Thanks a lot for this tutorial!
You're very welcome!
The best blender tutorials ever
Yooo thanks!
ok this is not clickbait... a super helpful tutorial here!
Never is 💪🏻 thanks!
Result looks really good. Thank for the tutorial
Thank you! Cheers!
You've just earned yourself a new subscriber (Amazing tutorial btw)
Thanks for the sub and kind words. Welcome to the club! 💪
Thank you so much this is one of the most helpful tutorials I've seen.
Happy to hear that! Thanks.
incredible incredible tutorial, most useful one i have seen in a looong time, thank you very much!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the kind words.
this is a bomb to my brain as a trying to learn 3D but those layering (nodes) is somehow can be very helpful for future use so I'll keep it on my list and force myself to feed my brain with all of this information. Thanks!
Haha sorry! But yeah I think there’s some decent knowledge to be had here 🤗
I was waiting for this video. I'm getting started on the material editor, and i needed some more tutorial like this :)
That’s great to hear. Thanks and happy Blending!
Wow this is actually amazing, really clear and straight to the point, thanks dude it helped a lot!
You’re welcome, glad to hear you like it! 🙏🏻
Blender is the future! Wow super nice
For sure! 💪🏻 thanks!
Incredible tutorial, thank you a lot! The Map Range settings turned out to be crucial for metallic edges
Yeah the map range can be quite difficult to get right, but it makes ALL the difference in the final result.
The first time I saw the thumbnail I know this is going to be a really good video. Proven right.
Eyyy thanks! 🙏🏻
Наконец найден идеальный урок по материалам!
Thanks, glad you like it.
ппц одну коробку сделать столько времени конечно уходит...теперь понятно почему игр не так много как хотелось бы и качество зачастую ужасно
I'm new to blender. This is amazing stuff. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Gonna try this right now.
Thanks! Glad I could help you get started on your journey 🤘🏻 happy Blending!
I started showing this to my friends who play Warhammer 40k and other tabletop games for how to paint their miniatures. As it turns out a lot of the techniques that skilled mini painters use are similar to how these smart materials work!
That’s so cool! Thanks for sharing 🙏🏻
Really nice workflow!
You can add lighter and darker areas better by using a relative operation. Instead of mixing darker and lighter colors, you can change the Saturation and Value of your existing color.
It's even possible to calculate the gradient relative to the object dimensions. This just show powerful Blender can be with materials, even if not perfectly intuitively
,
Thanks for the tips!
Wow. That’s awesome!
Thank you! Appreciate it.
Amazing how simply you have explained all the things thank man
Glad you liked it and love to hear the explanations were clear to you!
@@KaizenTutorials yeah it was very clear I would like to ask that starting screens which you have used in your video are made in blender or in other software .if the answer is blender please could you explain how did you make please.
Like the spinning crates? I did all editing in Premiere and all 3D things you see are Blender!
just incredible!👏👏👏 love your videos Kaizen!
Thank you, appreciate your support! 🖤
INVALUABLE TUTORIAL! Thanks Kaizen 🙏🙏
Glad it was helpful, my pleasure!
up until now i used to think those textures were hand painted! This is so amazing and would save a lot of time. I believe other surface imperfections like glass fingerprints and cracks are also possible with this technique!
Smeaf and you should do a competition about who can make more memeified blender tutorial videos lol
Thank you! Yeah you should be able to add about anything using these principles. And haha yeah well I know who would win that battle hands down, and it ain't me ;-)
I already find the nodes screen the most intimidating part of Blender, and this is one dense tutorial.
Though I was wondering, since it's a procedural texture, it's not possible to move let's say part of the yellow geometry below the dividing line, or it'll turn gray, right?
Then you'd have to make separate gray and yellow materials.
You're right. You can't move the geometry or it'll become gray. You can however move it and then change the color mask to match up with the new geometry. You can also create a UV Unwrap specifically for the color mask. So unwrap the model, apply the right colors to the right parts of the mesh and use the UV Texture Coordinate as the input for the color. This way you can retain proceduralness over all the smart masks but have more flexibility in changing the geometry!
That's a quick response!
Good to know.
Thanks for the great ground texture, from your blender file.
You’re welcome!
I have been going backwards and forwards so many times in this video that my smooth brain knows the entire script now 😂
The knowledge shared is great. The rhythm, edition, and script structure are just awesome. Keep up the great job!
Hahaha nice! Appreciate the kind words. 💪🙌