Hello,

I want to learn how to create a painted brick wall, with cracked paint (revealing the brick underneath it), dust driven by occlusion, and dirt… with all of the displacement built in as well… *brick, cracked paint, dirt… maybe not so much the dust though since it's so little*

I have yet to find anything on the level of a step by step approach to creating something like this… I was able to quickly get something like that built in Renderman because of a class. I'd just love to be able to remake this in Houdini! I think once I can handle something of that complexity, i'll have a way better understanding of all the “basics” for creating materials in houdini. I've scowered over there forums, tutorials and help files but haven't found anything that takes it this far… and most of the times, the forums i've read have just suggested people to “look at the prebuilt materials”… I've done just that, but still, nothing this complex… and it, *imho* doesn't seem the “easiest” step by step learning approach, to just analyze those materials because there seems to be SO many nodes, and subnets of nodes, and if then loops, and switches… a simple, step by step, here is how you do it… i think would do WONDERS for the amount of material/shader understanding… not just for me, but for the others that i see in the forums trying to learn this. I bought the “cmiVFX” rendering and shaders dvd, which was great, but once again, didn't really go into anything like this at all.

So once again, please, if someone could get me started on this, i'll do what it takes to follow along and learn on my own, but just looking at the built in materials hasn't gotten me to a full understanding of what i'm trying to do here. seems to be some “odd” way of doing things in lines of material creation that I just haven't been able to grasp…

Thanks,
Jonathan

i've also been working on a 3d multi texture projection, which you can find at odForce: http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?/topic/10049-multitex/ [forums.odforce.net]

My hopes are that I can implement this with the ideas i learn about how to get the cracking, chipped paint, dirt and dust… however, the multiTex is still in progress and doesn't completely work just yet. Will be sure to keep everyone updated on it's progress though!

Thanks for the time,
Jonathan

I was playing a bit with this too. I got the “Hard Surface Shading and Texturing” from Gnomon Workshop, and I've tried trying to apply that to Houdini, but it's a bit of a struggle. I find it amazing that no one has really replied to this?