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This is a really amateurish question but I'm completely lost at the movement. I trying to create a cloth with a wooly vest. However, no matter how I tried I cant seem to get the result I wanted. I've manage to sculpt and bake the fold to normal, However, I fail to create the "wool texture/feeling". which lead to this post

How does artist usually create pattern and details such as leather, wool, etc on to the cloth other model?

  • I've try directly sculpting on high poly model (through stencil) however the details is not consistent.

  • I've tried merging two normal map together(the one I've bake which include the fold and a wool normal map from the internet), it a didn't go so well as I've found it is best to bake your own normal then using other. The wool map does "join" correctly as shown on the image enter image description here

  • texture painting heavily rely on the artist skill (which embarrassingly, I'm not at the level on the model) and it is not suitable for the style I'm trying to pursuit. I would like the final to be something like this where at a glance a person could the pattern,texture and the details of the fabric.
    enter image description here

Hence, I'm completely lost. Clearly there is way to do it as many have able to create. I just cant seem to figure it out.

The link to my blender file it contain the mesh,3 normal maps and a node setup for merging N1 and N2 , the following are the name of the maps.

N1: the one with fold only(I acquire through baking from high to low poly) it is intended to mix with N2. N2: The normal I found on the internet , intended to mix with N1. If directly use on mesh, it will not "join" together properly refer to the image above. N3: I directly sculpt the "wool texture" on to the high poly and bake it to the low poly, as you can see the details is not very consistent

Kenny
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  • your attempt seems good, you just need to make sure that the UV match, and also make sure that you've chosen non-color in the Image Texture, and not sRGB. But maybe pack your image and share your file? https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ – moonboots Nov 24 '20 at 18:51
  • @moonboots I have attach the blend file to my post. – Kenny Nov 25 '20 at 03:14

1 Answers1

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For this kind of object you will necessarily have seams somewhere but you could delete the one on the top and it will unwrap correctly. You could also model a seam at the top so that it matches the UV seam.

As for the material, you could use a real picture of wool, but if you want to stay procedural, you can improve what you've done so far with some tweakings:

  • For the moment your wool looks a bit plastic, it is not supposed to be so glossy, so increase the Roughness and decrease the Specular values.
  • To make its tint more realistic and less monochromatic, Plug a Noise Texture node (with a high Scale value) into a ColorRamp with 2 or more colors.

enter image description here

enter image description here

About your question on mixing 2 normal maps, you can do it through a MixRGB, then plug the MixRGB into a Converter > Vector Math > Normalize:

enter image description here

I've watched this method that recommends to separate and recombine the RGB channels but I can't see any difference with my method as soon as I put a Converter > Vector Math > Normalize node as well, maybe node experts will tell...

moonboots
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  • Thank you so much. I have been struggling for 3 day to solve this problem.

    However, not sure if this a right place to ask as it is sort of unrelated to the current problem. Is there any good tutorial on node and texture that you would recommend. I have been follow a hand full of blender artist for tutorial but it is too fragmented.

    Other than that, would you recommend the merging of 2 normal map? like the method I'm currently doing. Because I'm not sure if that was the right way to do it.

     – Kenny Nov 25 '20 at 11:56
  • I don't know any tutorial or channels that address materials and textures in particular, you'll find some infos here and there, and the more you'll meet and solve difficulties the more you'll improve I guess. For your question about merging 2 normal maps, maybe explain a bit more? You can mix 2 normal map through a Color > Mix RGB for example, then plug into the Normal Map node, then play with the MixRGB mix factor, is it what you want? – moonboots Nov 25 '20 at 12:08
  • if you need one of your normal map to be rotated so that it matches better with the other, just plug another Mapping node into its Vector input, but actually maybe ellaborate your question because I'm not sure to understand, merging normal map could mean several different things ;) – moonboots Nov 25 '20 at 12:24
  • Hey, thank you for the quick reply, yes I mean merging through Mix RGB, I search for article, comment and video about it. Apparently, some user find this method to be a wrong method and recommend other method. Long story short, as a person who just know the surface level of node, I am constantly questioning my own method, is this how the industry do it? is this the correct way? I know there is no 100% correct way, but I hope to find the best way if it is possible. – Kenny Nov 25 '20 at 12:44
  • I don't know why it would not be correct to go through a MixRGB, but if you have alernative methods I'm interested as well ;) well, I guess the good method is the one that easily gives the better result – moonboots Nov 25 '20 at 12:48
  • Ok so I've tested the method explained here but I can't see a big difference with my method once you change a bit the settings: youtube.com/watch?v=aBpihNllKNw – moonboots Nov 25 '20 at 13:24
  • https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38298/how-to-combine-two-normal-maps

    I've discover this today(wish I discover it sooner), it have many different method of normal and each one of it seem to vary between each other. Other then that, here is a link for a blog post that explain the "number" behind merging 2 normal map (this was share by the person who said my method is incorrect) https://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/blending-in-detail/

    However, as a person without any coding knowledge I ended up even more confuse.

     – Kenny Nov 25 '20 at 14:10
  • from my understanding now. I guess, it heavily depend on the workflow and the result a person is trying to achieve. I know there is no guarantee correct way, but I guess there is no 100% best way as well. This feel like a bottomless rabbit hole, I'm a lot more curious on how people figure this out by themselves. – Kenny Nov 25 '20 at 14:17
  • Well, my method works fine so I don't want to spend days on alternatives, especially if it only improves slightly the result ;) besides that, you rarely have to mix two normal maps so I don't think it's a key problem. Actually Blender is a bit like Photoshop, everyone has his own way to do things and they are all good as long as they are fast and as you are satisfied with the result, 3D is all about faking things, people only see results, they don't see how complicated or simple you did the trick. – moonboots Nov 25 '20 at 14:55