How can I create this powder material?

Stu2Prof

I would like to recreate this image in 3d but am unsure how to create this texture realistically in Maya. I am using the a bump and colour map of sand to try and reproduce the effect. What source material should I be using for this?

ghaztehschmexeh

I would find something which is a bit wavey-noise-ish, convert it to a normal map and overlay it to what you have so far.

.Wiki

ghaztehschmexeh wrote: »

I would find something which is a bit wavey-noise-ish, convert it to a normal map and overlay it to what you have so far.

You are using a offline renderer so just use a displacement map to give it some waviness. There is no need to use a normalmap. It would be really obvious in such a closeup shot.
I would combine 2 displacements in the material. One for the big waves and a second for the sand grain, this should give you a lot of detail.

Stu2Prof

I used a noise texture with the displacement and got a far better result

ghaztehschmexeh

It's a bit blobby, maybe try blurring the displacement map and increasing the contrast? I'd tone it down a bit too.

Obscura

Since its very grainy, just like a sand, and the waves behave almost the same, I would try approaching it as I would do with a sand. You can sculpt the base, and then add some small scale noise procedurally even in a sculpting package, or with alphas. As an alternative, I would recommend Substance designer. I'm pretty sure, there are many tutorials on youtube about how to make a wavy sand, and a simple sand. As a third solution, you can traditionally model some waves, and add the the graininess procedurally, or with a map. I would do the waves/"wrinkles" with a displacement map, and the gain as a normal or bump map. Or yeah, maybe both can be displaces, but this is unnecessary if you don't want to make shots from very close.

Stu2Prof

I have had a look at Substance Designer and it looks pretty great. As I am just starting would you recommend Substance Designer 4 or 5? I would prefer to learn something more stable with more tutorials and would be afraid number 5 might be too new

SyncViewS

studtoprof wrote: »

I have had a look at Substance Designer and it looks pretty great. As I am just starting would you recommend Substance Designer 4 or 5? I would prefer to learn something more stable with more tutorials and would be afraid number 5 might be too new

Hi studtoprof,

I would recommend Substance Designer 5, because it expands on the features already available in version 4. As a matter of fact all the tutorials for version 4 are still relevant for version 5. On top of that, the guys at Allegorithmic are constantly updating the software with bug fixes and new features, that you would miss if working with the previous version.

Cheers