Need A Good Sand Shader/Material C5

[Aunty Betty]

Hi folks I wonder if anyone could help me out. Carrara 5 doesn't seem to come with any sand shader. I'm particularly looking for a beach sand with a wavy bump that also looks good up close and middle distance.

Is this a job for a terrain shader or would a basic multi channel shader do the trick?

Landscape shading in Carrara is not my forte I must say.

Hope someone has can help me out with a free shader that I could tweak.

Many thanks

[Aunty Betty]

Just an update -I've been fiddling around using a wave noise to create the bump but this is not giving me the more random rippling and snaking found it sand.

Hmm just added an updated bump mixer blend between the wave noise and the a ripple noise - still not happy.

Any suggestions?

[rickei]

Hmmm. I created a pretty good sand shader, once. Let me see if I can find that scene.
I do remember, that i used displacement for the ripples, and I think I used "spots" in the bump channel

[Aunty Betty]

Thanks rickei - I'll keep my fingers crossed that you've still got the example.

[bwtr]

This is just a quick first try/test example using one of the Enhance C shaders in the Displacement tag.
The sand itself used a Cellular blender in a Mixer of two yellow colours.

[bwtr]

This is with the previous setting changed to caustic. I think it looks better?

[rickei]

I couldn't find that old scene file. but I whiped up a quick shader.
actually 2 of them.

the one on the left uses a texture map in the displacement tab and the one on the right uses a procedural woodgrain shader in the displacement.

I'm not sure what type of sand you are trying to make, but maybe these will help

[Aunty Betty]

Thank you both so much for your response. Your mutual recommendations of displacements has been extremely helpful.

Brian - the second one is very close to what I'm looking for. I'd found myself trying to use mixer blends of 2 gradients each controlled by noise shaders to give the effect of the grains. I haven't yet thought of a way of getting that random discoloration found in sand where certain areas are wetter than others.

The quick way I suppose would be to uv map a ground mesh and use a greyscale to control colour blending or perhaps a painted greyscale using planar projection for the blending.

Rickei - these are great, many thanks indeed for your time.

I'll post up the finished results when it's all come together.

Thanks guys.

[Aunty Betty]

I also thought I'd mention in passing that I've also tried using actual photographic sand tiles - but they were too realistic :-)

I'm going for an artistic representation that's believable but not the truth - the truth doesn't always work best in an image :-)

[bwtr]

This is one of my first landscape efforts in Carrara 6. Using my sand idea as mentioned earlier. A lot more to do on it yet but at least a start of an idea.
I note that, maybe, the Insert>Fog may have a working glitch? If confirmed, would someone report please.

[bwtr]

A long day and still a long way from what I had in my minds eye!
Time for bed!

[chrisd]

Originally Posted by Aunty Betty

I also thought I'd mention in passing that I've also tried using actual photographic sand tiles - but they were too realistic :-)

I'm going for an artistic representation that's believable but not the truth - the truth doesn't always work best in an image :-)

Some would say the truth doesn't always work best in life as well.

[bwtr]

http://www.cgtextures.com/
These free ones would be handy for future use maybe?

[bwtr]

Using one of those CG Textures and also in the Displacement tab.

[Aunty Betty]

Thanks Brian and Chris for the quip

[digitalarena]

I produced a cement shader that could also work as dirty wet sand if it is any help as a starting point.

Download it here:
http://www.digitalarena.co.uk/vmatte...ral/cement.htm

[bwtr]

Thanks.