Hey guys! I've recently started getting into creating shaders and using VOPS. I've followed enough tutorials to be comfortable with VOP networks and now I want to do something a little more complicated. I'm interested in building layered materials like car paint but I'm not sure how to go about it. Do I just start with one material and edit it with reflections and such or is there a way to mix a lambert and specular material together and edit it that way?

Also, random question but I'm interested in finding more learning materials for houdini and I've heard a lot of good reviews for houdini on the spot and the magic of houdini. Are these still relevant/helpful today or would they be a bit outdated at this point?

Hey man,

watched a buddy of mine create a car paint shader, here are somethings i learned from him and hopefully they would be helpful to you.

- Mixing up different components like lambert, specular etc is definitely the way to go (use “Add” node put them together)

- Get references and observe how cars' surfaces behave, there's different types. Afew things I know people would take note are different coat of specular, flakes and reflections. (may want to look into “Edge Falloff” node)

- There's a lots of people who had done car-paint shader within and outside of Houdini, you peek into their files which can be found on sidefx/odforce forum and Houdini Exchange. (I peeked at mentalRay's car-paint material and checked out what kind of properties it offered which helped quite abit)

The 2 books you mentioned, I felt most of the things inside are relevant and can still be used but the screen-captures might seem primitive as it was an old version of Houdini. Would recommend Magic of Houdini for beginner/intermediate, Houdini on the spot is more like tips/tricks for advanced users if you ask me. They are without a doubt helpful!

eitht.

thanks for the advice! I finally got it to work, all I was missing was the reflection node (go figure =P). The Specular node didn't make much of a difference so I was just wondering what advantages does it have, or how it is typically used and what for?

My next step is to understand refractions. I'm including an image of a final project I'd like to work on, but again, I'm not quite sure how to tackle refractions. Any advice is always welcome and I will be going through tutorials and example files as well.

http://www.google.com/imgres?start=81&hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&biw=1531&bih=970&addh=36&tbm=isch&prmd=imvnsr&tbnid=jJw7_we0Ry72-M:&imgrefurl=http://wallpaper-boecah.blogspot.com/2012/01/marble-wallpaper.html&docid=8y-wjyv2VAg9XM&imgurl=http://www.freeipadwalls.com/wp-content/gallery/3d/Marbles.jpg&w=1024&h=1024&ei=5Rj2T4H0PImA2gWZ3JjCBg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1275&vpy=415&dur=361&hovh=148&hovw=146&tx=103&ty=121&sig=109289439264853937010&page=3&tbnh=147&tbnw=145&ndsp=42&ved=1t:429,r:49,s:81,i:27 [google.com]

iwilson2, you seem to have some spam in your post? Please remove.