I’m relatively new to blender and have been experimenting with textures. At the moment, i’ve been trying to make a photo realistic dirt block (or at least something that’s close). Up to now, i’ve added an image texture as well as some displacement and i’ve gotten to this result, but i’m stuck now.
When making shaders, it’s allways a good practice to have a good lighting. Even better is to have two or more different light setups or Enviroment Hdrs to see how the material works in different situations.
Apart from that, your shader looks ok.
I would keep just one diffuse node, and do the mixing just at the color level; Thought this is only a personal preference, it helps to keep the shader a bit more organized (color stuff in one part, closure stuff in another).
Ok, thanks for that! I’ll try doing that. Would you change or add anything for the mixing of the color? And what would you suggest for the lighting setup? I’ve heard of 3 point lighting, but I’ve never really had any success in setting it up.
3 point lighting is a bit more for illustration purposes (normally to enhance mesh details). For just testing materials, good HDRs are better.
For example: you’re trying to do dirt, and most likely you find dirt in outdoors. So use some outdoor environments HDRs (sunny sky, cloudy, sunset, etc). If desining materials for indoors, then studio lights, rooms and so on.
If you want, look for the BMPS (Blender Material Preview Scene), as it’s very neutral for visualizing shaders.
