Gold ore substance

LorasTyrell

Hi everyone, I did this substance earlier in the week after a moment of inspiration. I'm pretty happy about it, but something just doesn't feel right. People I've asked seem to agree on this, but I  can't single out what to change in the graph. Any ideas inputs from you guys?

LorasTyrell

Small update: I think some of the issue lies in the connection between the rock and the gold. I added some modifications around this area to make the gold stand out more, and I think it did help. I'll probably adjust the size of it though

Finnn

To improve your substance, you need to work on the height and shapes of your rocks
Right now they look very uniform and noisy, without clearly defined shapes.
Choose a reference, for example from textures.com
https://www.textures.com/download/pbr0175/133213?q=rock

Here is one:

This is the height map of this material. Download it from textures.com and try to replicate it. Work as close as possible from reference. Your results will show it!
As you can see in this height map, there are big differences in values and clearly pronounced shapes.

Really focus your substance workflow on the height maps BEFORE doing any color, roughness etc
I usually work with a grey color + ao in my base color slot, a grey value for roughness, normal map, very subtle AO and the Height map. This way you can nicely see the changes in your height map.

You might want to check out Daniel Thigers Rock Tutorial these could help you out alot.

Hope this helps you out!