Dust, Scratches and Surface Imperfections - How To ...
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 1:22 am
Trying to not hijak the important thread by Andreas ... switching the subject to its own thread.......
Matteo, you asked about how to add dust, sratches and slight surface imperfections to a material.
My apologies for losing track of your important question, while trying to understand the omission Andreas cited about lack of a tutorial for dust and scratches in the Maxwell documentation.
But I have not forgotten your question, and have been thinking of you - so I made something for you.
The short answer to your question is that there is a simple way to add slight imperfections to a material. The most common method is to add a "dust overlay map" or a "scratch overlay map" - a black and white texture map to the Height Slot of the the material you are making in the Material Editor.
Here is an illustration of the method:
Changing the value that you would use for the "Bump Amount" is not quite as easy as using a slider - but it is near to that simplicity. Larger values make the "dust particles" more prominent, and smaller values make the "dust particles" less prominent. You also can "invert" the black and white colors of any map to create a more dense dust effect, of course.
If you are working on an interior setting for an architectural render, this will make the "bumps" on an object prominent enough to maybe achieve the desired effect.
If you are working on a product shot where the camera is close to an object, and the object has metal parts, it is better to put one of these dust or scratch overlays in the "Anisotrophy" slot. These will be shown as more subtle scratches .
Assuming that you need some Dust and Scratch texture files to use, I made a little package for you to download.
Inside the package, there are two folders - one for "dust" and one for "scratches." And, there is a folder that contains all the Maxwell Diffuse RAL Color materials, along with a little sample Maxwell material with "dust" just like in the illustration above.
For the "scratches," I have shifted to using a Substance *.sbsar file that I made a while ago. It generates 100 different scratch patterns. The use of the Substance *.sbsar file allows me (and now, you) to make these scratch patterns in any size that you might need, and to make random variations of those first 100 patterns. (This is called "OneHundredScratchPatterns.sbsar")
You may not be familiar with the Substance suite of applications, so I also included a copy of the "Substance Player" application in this little package. If you are not familiar with this - you'll need to install the Substance Player application first. Once it is installed, you can just click on the "OneHundredScratchPatterns.sbsar" for anywhere in your computer, and it will open to let you play with the settings. Then, when you have a pattern that you like, you can "export" that pattern as a texture file. I recommend using the *.png file format for your export.
I'll probably create an *.sbsar file in the future for making "dust", and maybe one for making "splotches." It is much easier to use a generator - than to keep a bunch of dust and scratch overlay maps around. However, there are 41 dust overlay maps in the package - these are those I've made the most use of in the last few years.
Two comments . First, I've given you the 40-plus dust maps I've made the most use of over the last several years. But, these generally are big images. They take up a lot of the space reserved for texture files in your computer's memory. Lately, I've found that smaller images - maybe 1024 x 1024 pixels work just as well when they are multiplied in the Maxwell Material Editor. Second, in experimenting with all of this, I've found that black and white maps work better than grey-scale maps, unless you are working with glass or other translucent materials. Black and white maps don't take up as much computer memory as grey-scale maps.
Anyhow, you can download this package at http://www.expandingwave.com/clientdown ... rester.zip
Anyone is free to download these dust and scratch map items - but please do so by October 2021. (I'll be closing down my website and moving everything to Artstation Marketplace sometime in October.)
Matteo, you asked about how to add dust, sratches and slight surface imperfections to a material.
My apologies for losing track of your important question, while trying to understand the omission Andreas cited about lack of a tutorial for dust and scratches in the Maxwell documentation.
But I have not forgotten your question, and have been thinking of you - so I made something for you.
The short answer to your question is that there is a simple way to add slight imperfections to a material. The most common method is to add a "dust overlay map" or a "scratch overlay map" - a black and white texture map to the Height Slot of the the material you are making in the Material Editor.
Here is an illustration of the method:
Changing the value that you would use for the "Bump Amount" is not quite as easy as using a slider - but it is near to that simplicity. Larger values make the "dust particles" more prominent, and smaller values make the "dust particles" less prominent. You also can "invert" the black and white colors of any map to create a more dense dust effect, of course.
If you are working on an interior setting for an architectural render, this will make the "bumps" on an object prominent enough to maybe achieve the desired effect.
If you are working on a product shot where the camera is close to an object, and the object has metal parts, it is better to put one of these dust or scratch overlays in the "Anisotrophy" slot. These will be shown as more subtle scratches .
Assuming that you need some Dust and Scratch texture files to use, I made a little package for you to download.
Inside the package, there are two folders - one for "dust" and one for "scratches." And, there is a folder that contains all the Maxwell Diffuse RAL Color materials, along with a little sample Maxwell material with "dust" just like in the illustration above.
For the "scratches," I have shifted to using a Substance *.sbsar file that I made a while ago. It generates 100 different scratch patterns. The use of the Substance *.sbsar file allows me (and now, you) to make these scratch patterns in any size that you might need, and to make random variations of those first 100 patterns. (This is called "OneHundredScratchPatterns.sbsar")
You may not be familiar with the Substance suite of applications, so I also included a copy of the "Substance Player" application in this little package. If you are not familiar with this - you'll need to install the Substance Player application first. Once it is installed, you can just click on the "OneHundredScratchPatterns.sbsar" for anywhere in your computer, and it will open to let you play with the settings. Then, when you have a pattern that you like, you can "export" that pattern as a texture file. I recommend using the *.png file format for your export.
I'll probably create an *.sbsar file in the future for making "dust", and maybe one for making "splotches." It is much easier to use a generator - than to keep a bunch of dust and scratch overlay maps around. However, there are 41 dust overlay maps in the package - these are those I've made the most use of in the last few years.
Two comments . First, I've given you the 40-plus dust maps I've made the most use of over the last several years. But, these generally are big images. They take up a lot of the space reserved for texture files in your computer's memory. Lately, I've found that smaller images - maybe 1024 x 1024 pixels work just as well when they are multiplied in the Maxwell Material Editor. Second, in experimenting with all of this, I've found that black and white maps work better than grey-scale maps, unless you are working with glass or other translucent materials. Black and white maps don't take up as much computer memory as grey-scale maps.
Anyhow, you can download this package at http://www.expandingwave.com/clientdown ... rester.zip
Anyone is free to download these dust and scratch map items - but please do so by October 2021. (I'll be closing down my website and moving everything to Artstation Marketplace sometime in October.)