The problem is in that bright orange-yellow tone showing up in the mid range in Cycles. (You can see it in Eevee too, but barely). In Cycles it can grow to dominate the image if the angle is just right.
I’ve been struggling to learn materials for a while now, and I’m not sure I have any real idea what I’m doing. The basis for this material started from El Brujo De La Tribu’s metal materials pack brass for cycles…
I have tried to find the source of this bright orange by simply disconnecting things, but nothing seems to affect it. At this point I don’t know what I am doing wrong. (I created this material, just to be clear.)
Do you have a reference image? I doubt those scratches are oriented that consistently in the real thing, and that the axels are also brass. I would also focus on Cycles, since only that can do anisotropic semi good. Eevee is just about faking it and probably no node resources could be shared like you’re attempting to do. Anisotropic materials isn’t just a “grab them off a library and slap them on” deal; different radial tangents possibly mixed with UV tangents, different brushing directions, satin polished or brushed scratchmarks, how to best utilize UV space and so on.
There’s nothing wrong with brass axels. You tend to get them on higher-end pianos because they’re prettier.
Orientation and randomness of scratches can be changed — I’m still messing with it — but yes, most of the time it will follow the curve of the wheel instead of cutting across like I have it.
I am not sure what you mean by your last bit about “slapping on” anisotropy. I’m just trying to make things look believably pretty, and I would just like a pointer or two in the right direction without having to become a materials scientist. I didn’t think my question was about the anisotropy in my images… As far as I know that’s not the issue (and it is currently not very easy to see in the cycles — remove the scratches and it’s there).
The kind of brass you’re describing is higher in zinc- it’s harder, more silver, cooler, and much less common. You’ll only find brass like that in antique musical instruments. Your piano pedals actually look spot on to me, assuming you’re going for a piano built in the last 50-60 years
Yeah, that’s the timeframe. I suppose I’ve just played with too many really old church pianos, lol. If it looks good enough for you I think I’m okay to leave it at that.
I think I still need to mess with a variation of the material on the harp. That thing is actually cast iron, not brass. I just don’t know the parameters, as all online attempts get me the black skillet variety.
All used in some variation of the following for Wheel, Fork, Pedal, and Rod. Each variation only differs a little in the way the metal is brushed, which is most of what you see in the node setup here:
Here is what I currently have for the cast iron frame
It is about as close as I can get it. No anisotropy this time, just a bunch of randomized noise for both color and texture feeding a Principled BSDF’s Color, Roughness, and Normal inputs. The orange hue along the pinblock seems me about right now. I tried to mess with some Fresnel to get the orange color on the vertical parts of the frame and yellowish highlighting on the horizontal parts, but couldn’t seem to get that quite right. I think it looks close enough now, though.
Do y’all agree?
Or do you think I’m missing something here?
Keep in mind, that’s not always how it’s done. If it’s done with machining, then yes, a radial lathing would leave radial anisotropic. If it’s done through buffing or polishing, sometimes you just choose to go directional and maybe just stick with isotropic reflections in interior hard to reach places. I.e. this door-knob is directionally polished to a satin finish even if the machining was probably radially done in a lathe.
With “slapping on anisotropy” I mean what I usually see from stuff I try out from BlenderKit. I have yet to see a single kitchen sink done properly (or at all) using anisotropy that follows what would be the result of actual production of the thing. Not that I have succeeded myself, I always struggle with getting the shading of the welds (and transition) correct.
If you go watch some 5-axis milling operation vidoes, you’ll see just how crazy complex trying to mimic these appearances manipulating brush strokes and anisotropic direction (and/or tangents) can be. But for the stuff I’ve downloaded to check, it has been very sloppy done with no consideration to the real thing, manufacturing process, or final polishing. And yeah, I AM a sucker for materials way more so than for models
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