Tips and Tricks

I love the tile sampler and slope blur! They are so powerful! Other than that I don’ really have any specific SD tips or tricks. I would just say, like with 3D art, to start with the broad strokes, work up to the smaller details and don’t forget to use reference. When dealing with something complex, strip it down to simpler parts. One of the big things I learned while working on these materials is just how powerful SD can be. Its changed my view on texturing in general. Like I mentioned earlier, once you know some of the basic fundamentals, you can approach even the most visually intricate materials.

Ways to Present Materials

I do all my renders using IRay. Its really nice being able to do everything in SD. When I render my materials, I usually have my first render as a straight on shot, as if you’re standing a foot or two away. I just do this because I like the look of the vignette, they’re almost like small scale compositions in a way. For lighting, I typically use a select few HDRI’s within SD. I try to keep that part of it simple and have things naturally lit. I found light placement in the renders to be really important however. Especially when dealing with surfaces that have very shallow displacement. The shadows really help sell the displacement. As a final pass, I’ll do a slight color grade outside of SD to really accentuate elements in the vignette.