This is an attempt at making a cheap thin plastic you’d see in for example… a bucket, which is what I modeled here. I wasn’t really sure about where the SSS node went. Be harsh tell mere where I went wrong. I think I did ok, but I’d like some thoughts.
How about using the fairly new Principled Shader instead? Then you can throw all these nodes out and SSS and everything will come out right.
You could just use the principled shader for this and it would be easier, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner and here’s why: Nodes are fairly complex and the best way to learn them is usually by experimenting and trying to replicate larger node setups. The principled shader takes away alot from the learning process when it comes to nodes, so I think building materials entirely on your own, without the principled shader will get you to understand nodes faster and therefore prepare you better for making complex materials in the future.
Now about the node tree in the screenshot: You are mixing a glossy and a diffuse with a layerweight node using the fresnel output. The problem is that the layer weight node doesn’t use physically correct IOR values for the fresnel, instead it uses a value range from 0 to 1. It is better to use the fresnel node, because it uses IOR values that you can look up to get a realistic material (like for example here) (If you don’t know what fresnel or ior is, I recommend you watch this - it predates the principled shader, so it is a little dated, but the theory is still valid and important - you might want to watch this afterwards).
Then you are plugging a diffuse shader into a mix shader with no other input. This makes no sense, because and empty input is just black - no information. Since you set the factor to 0.001 this makes virtually no difference, but it is nontheless pointless, so get rid of that node and plug the diffuse shader directly into the mix shader with the glossy shader.
Then you plugged a subsurface shader into the normal input of the diffuse shader. A normal input is for normal information - that is information about which direction a surface is pointion towards. You should plug image textures (normal maps + a normal map node), texture nodes or bump nodes into a normal input, but never shaders. (General rule of thumb: inputs and outputs with the same color go together).
Plugging a bump node ino the normal input of the sufsurface scattering node is technically correct, however due to the previously mentioned problem this doesn’t really do anything.
The noise texture node is connected incorrectly to the bump node as well. The normal input requires normal inormation (like from a normal map), however the factor output of the noise node is a greyscale version of the color output and therefore no normal information. It can however be used as height information, by plugging it into the displacement input of the material output node, or it can be converted to normal information by plugging it into the height input of a bump node.
Finally you are using object coordinates for the noise texture, which is entirely possible, but generally speaking when mapping textures, you’ll want to use either UV coordinates (requires UV unwrapping you mesh and is an important thing to know, so i recommend watching tutorials on that topic) or generated coordinates.
I disagree, The principled shader is superior. Why bother with stuff that’s outdated? Especially for beginners who don’t have a lot of stuff to unlearn. There is plenty of nodes to play with anyway. Most people want the artistic effect and are not really into the physics of light.
Thanks for the suggestions, I found someones node setup for hard plastic like on Beats headphones, and tried to modify it so that it appeared softer and not quite as glossy. I’ll look into the principled shader, I took a brief look at it, it doesn’t look that complicated, it just seems to squash a bunch of the other nodes into one big node.
Not quite that simple, it keeps the light physical, including fresnel reflection, so if you want unnatural effects you need to go to old fashioned nodes.