Creating realistic Wood Material ( part2/3)

In this tutorial CG Artist from Brasil: Ramon Zancanaro will show us how to create a realistic wood material which can be use for several ...

In this tutorial CG Artist from Brasil: Ramon Zancanaro will show us how to create a realistic wood material which can be use for several objects on scene such floors and furniture.


if you did not see the part 1, take a look here

2 - Composing the diffuse colour map

This sample was made into 3Ds Max 2011 utilizing the material Slate editor because is much easier to control, but can be executed in previous versions of 3Ds Max that don't have this tool.
To begin the composition open the material editor clicking on Rendering>Material Editor>Slate Material Editor. For this exercise we will use VRayMtl. On the left corner on Material/Map Browser, drag and drop the VRayMtl to the Material Editor This area has the name View1 (top right corner).
Now we need to attach a mix map into the diffuse. For that, on the Material/Map Browser and on Maps > Standard Tab, find the Mix map. Drag and drop to the view1 beside the VRayMtl created before. To apply the Mix map into the diffuse simply connect the node of the Mix map into de node of the diffuse Vray Mtl.
The Mix map contain 3 channels: Colour 1, Colour 2 and Mix amount. The map that we made on Photoshop should be applied into Mix Amount channel. To bring this map to this channel go to Material/Map Browser, find the Tab Maps and inside find the standard and then Bitmap. Drag and drop into View1. When the Windows browser open, find the wood 01 edited.jpg file, select him and then click open. Now, just like we did before, connect the node of the bitmap into the node of the Mix Amount. The basic structure will be like this:

Figure B-10. Wood with mix map
Now we need to choose the colours that will replace the black and white on the bitmap placed onto channel Mix Amount. To choose this colours we need to double click on the Mix Map. In this moment, the Mix map controls will open on the right tab. Clicking on the Colour that is beside the Color #1 we can select the colour for the dark veins of the wood. Click on the colour beside the Color #2 we can select the colours for the lighter veins of the wood.
To achieve the realistic result, it's necessary a bit of skills to observe the real world to select the colours. A good tip for that is select the colour for the Color #1 and then drag to the Color #2, then tweak parameters such Sat: and Value: to achieve the contrast. This will prevent different track colour (hue) avoiding artificial result.
Bellow some material samples and some colour values for Color #1 and Color #2.

Figure B-11. Wood with RGB Adjusts
For this sample we will use the value Color #1 R 45 - G 33 - B 22; Color #2 R 88 - G 57 - B 45

Applying Glossy and brightness variation
The wood veins normally react in different ways when varnish is applied, resulting with a non-uniform varnish brightness. Most of woods has porous areas (normally on the lighter veins), and this areas almost always absorb a large quantity of varnish than the dense areas, resulting in less bright areas. This absorption can be avoid using sealers that will uniform the porous of the wood.
To simulate this material effect we need to create a map that will define areas where the bright will be more intense and areas where will be opaque.
This effect will be simulate on Refl. Glossiness Channel. The first step is add a bit of reflect to this material. For that, double click on the material, and then on the right Tab we will have the material controls. By clicking on colour beside reflect, we can define the amount of reflect. White means total reflection (such mirror) and black indicate the absence of reflection. For this example, we can use the amounts R-34 G-34 B-34.
Now we need to create a new Mix map on the material editor and as we did before, add into Mix Amount channel the map wood 01 edited.jpg. This map should be connected to the Refl. Glossiness channel of Vray Mtl. The brightness control variation will be make using the adjust of the Color #1 and Color #2. Darken colours will make blurred reflects (simulating more absorption of varnish) and lighter colours will deliver more clean reflects.
For this examples we will use: Color #1 R-198 G-198 B-198 e Color #2 R-139 G-139 B-139.
The result will be like this:

Figure B-12. Wood Material Final result
Bellow examples of maps with different tones for Color #1 and Color #2 and the results on material.

Figure B-13. Wood Materials with different RGB Color

Wood Floor

Objectives
This tutorial has the objective to help on creation of realistic laminate floors and can be either combine with the previous techniques presented or with wood textures already made.
Like the wood textures, the floor textures with good quality is rare to find and most of them need some work to be consider good enough to use with satisfactory result.

Figure B-63. Figure of 3D Render with wood Floor
Creating Floor

For creating the floor, we will follow those steps:
1 - Creating the material (in this case, using the previous technique)
2 - Creating the 3D Model

1 - Creating the material:
For the material we will use the wood created on the previous chapter. The file "wood 02.jpg" is inside the folder textures.
See bellow the samples for this chapter:

To create this material, We will use the technique showed previously on woods. Using the texture wood 02.jpg that is on texture folder on Mix map. Use the values R 64 - G 44 - B 32 for Color #1 and R 161 - G 135 - B 105 for Color #2.

Now we need to apply Glossy and reflect on this material. On Material/Map Browser go to Maps>Standard>Mix and drag right bellow the wood Mix. Connect the wood bitmap of material editor to Mix amount of this new Mix map. Double click on this and go to Right and change the Color #1 to R 160 - G 160 - B 160 and Color #2 to R 220 - G 220 - B 220. Now connect the node of this Mix to the node of the Refl glossiness on Vray Mtl.

Double click on Vray Mtl and on the right, go to Reflection on Basic parameters and change the reflection color to R 50 - G 50 - B 50.

To simulate the gaps between the wood planks, we will use the VrayEdgesTex that allow us to create this effect without the need to chamfer the 3D model. for that, got to Material/ Map Browser and find the tab Maps>Standard>VrayEdgesTex. Drag and drop to the View1 and connect the node with the Bump on Vray mtl. After that, double click on VrayEdgesTex and on the right Tab we can control the parameters for the VrayEdgesTex map. On thickness we need to tick the option "world units" to define the gap according to the model scale. Use the value 0,08. The material structure should be like this:

Figure B-64. Wood Texture structure
To achieve a more interesting result, we will create a material underneath to this with identical structure, however using different colour on mix map that is on diffuse channel, so our material will be more darker. Use the channel mix on diffuse for this new material, the value for that will be Color #1 R 20 - G 13 - B 10 and for Color #2 R 97 - G 73 - B 52.

This will be the final structure:

Figure B-65. Wood material final structure
We need to mix the materials and divide them in the planks. For this mixing we will use the Blend material. We will find this material on the Tab Material/Map Browser inside the tab Materials>Standard>Blend. Drag and drop to the View1 in front of the created materials. Now, connect the lighter wood material node into Material 1 and the darker wood material into the Material 2 of the blend material. The material structure will be like this:

Figure B-66. Wood material structure
Now we will create a tile map to be utilize as mixed mask for the wood material inside the Blend. Go on Tab Material/Map Browser inside the tab Maps>Standard>Tiles. Drag and drop to the View2 and connect the Mask node into material Blend.

It's also necessary to configure the Tiles map so we can achieve the map result with the ruler following the same way of the wood vein. To configure this map, we have to double click the tiles map on the Right Tab and find the tab Advanced Controls.

Now we need to define the planks forms, for that we will work inside the box Tiles Setup. We need to indicate the divisions only in the vertical way, so the value on Vert. Count should be 0. To define the amount of the Planks, we have to use value 7 in Horiz Count.

We have also to add the white colour in texture and the value 3,5 for the Fade Variance. The result for this will be the plank texture with sharpness contrast. The planks tones distribution will be randomly, but many times the sequence doesn't have interesting variations. To find other sequences we need to change the Random Seed Value on the Miscellaneous box map. On this Sample, use the value 55270.

Now remove the part that make the union between the planks. For that we got to go on Grout Setup and set the value 0,01 for Horizontal and Vertical Gap.

Bellow the final map result and the values utilized on Tiles map on Advanced Controls tab:

Figure B-67. Material Final Structure
And the material result for the mixed materials (Material Blend):

Figure B-68. Final Material

Part 3 is coming shortly!