Creating a realistic wood material with V-Ray

Introduction

We are going to look at some real world photos of antique wood, analyze the main features and use some advanced material creation techniques to re-create that look with V-Ray.

Instead of unwrapping all the objects and painting custom maps for them, we are going to use a procedural approach. This method is quicker and the resulting material can be re-used in other projects.

The result is also very flexible – since I’ll be using a layered approach, I can turn off or modify features like worn edges or dust.

This tutorial is not meant to just show you how to create wood, it’s also meant to show you how you can achieve complex results using some simple V-Ray and 3DS Max maps. You can use these methods for a multitude of other materials and adapt/develop them as you see fit.

Subjects covered: V-Ray material creation techniques, using vrayblendmtl for complex layered materials, using vraydirt and falloff maps as procedural masks.

The Tutorial

Part 1 – Wood

Part 2 – Lacquer

Part 3 – Worn edges

Part 4 – Dust

Download the files available for this tutorial:
– dirt.png
– scratches.jpg
– smudges.jpg
– wood_scene.max
You can download the starting scene and the b&w textures I used HERE. I haven’t included the wood texture because of copyright issues, but you can use any wood texture you have available!

Learn more advanced V-Ray material techniques:
If you would like to learn more about creating quality V-Ray materials, including Photoshop techniques for tileable texture and dirtmap creation, check out Viscorbel’s Creating V-Ray Materials premium video tutorial series.

Austris Cingulis is a self-taught 3D artist based in Latvia. He has almost 10 years of experience with 3DS Max and a background in arch-viz, product-viz and game industries. Currently Austris is producing training materials for 3DS Max and V-Ray. You can check out his free and premium tutorials on his site VISCORBEL.COM.