Better Edge Masks in Blender - Procedural Texturing

[@zillaquazar]

The music, the visuals, the style, it feels like I'm watching a history documentary getting to the climax of a great battle all while learning about blender. This is so well done thankyou. I have subscribed now

[@TTTristan1]

This is what I love about Blender video creators/the community at large. You feel like you're discovering a powerful treasure when you watch/hear about new techniques.

[@arifinaja963]

Agree

[@ArnaudMEURET]

The music is too loud.

[@matbrady123456]

@@valerys.219 I loved the music. It made it much more epic. Riley, ignore that person's comment.

[@ethancotton1549]

I was thinking the same thing lmao!

[@ThoughtsFew]

A heads up for anyone following along that still happens to be a beginner. He's rendering in cycles and is previewing his nodes with Ctrl,Shift,+ left click on the desired node with the node wrangler addon. Also, if your mesh has custom normals your results may vary.

[@dacastror]

thank you very much for your message, I'm new to blender and this helped me a lot, thanks again

[@ThoughtsFew]

@@dacastror happy to hear!

[@darkscorpion6534]

How do i get this to work with my added texture and blue colour?

[@Rocketcityninja]

@@darkscorpion6534 Add a mix shader plugging this into the Fac.

[@dalerogers3114]

many Thanks

[@grabbitt]

That's very useful. thanks

[@kouyopoto]

Hey that's fun to see you here, I was thinking of your tutorial on crystals painting while looking at this video

[@cosmicoverlap]

Fancy seeing you here. I watch your videos all the time, except when I was watching this one....Ok I'll go back to watching yours. :))

[@DECODEDVFX]

I've been using basically the same method recently to make edge masks. Good video mate. Subscribed.

[@renderllama7036]

yo decoded!

[@capnanaya4642]

@@renderllama7036 hes not gonna reply to you

[@nagysamuel2575]

I've integrated this method into literally all the projects I do with blender, can't thank you enough Riley.

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@Igoreshkin]

@@pixelstresd2971 It's ONLY work in CYCLES

[@ckat609]

I love it when tutorials that actually explains things and teaches you instead of being just follow step by step videos. Awesome!

[@LonnonFoster]

I've been playing with a number of other people's techniques for edge masking in Blender, and some of them have the bevel and dot product combination in them, but hidden so deeply in a more complicated node group that it's difficult to figure out what's really happening. This tutorial is simplicity itself, and elegantly presented. Thank you for finally making me understand what's been in front of my eyes for a long time!

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@tobiashagstrom4168]

This treats convex and concave geometry the same though, which is not at all what you want for almost anything type of object I can think of. For example, metal would be most oxidized or dirty in concave areas where dirt and moisture can accumulate slightly easier, forming rust, and prevents it all from from being rubbed off by natural wear. A convex area is more likely to have contact with other objects or receiver concentrated wear, which might make it cleaner and shinier, or might ruin the finish and give it a worn-in roughness, depending on its properties and what it's subjected to. The only context in which a convex area would accumulate more rust or dirt more than a flatter area is if the convex areas are already worn down a bit, perhaps having some rust-resistant finish destroyed or worn to a rougher surface where rust penetrates better or dirt sticks easier, but that's only if it's first worn in, and then left in a state were it doesn't receiver further wear that would clean it, allowing rust or dust to settle on the worn surfaces. So perhaps for abandoned metal objects this could make some sense, but nothing outside of that, I don't think.

[@sibience]

In theory you could try one of two things to fix this. You could just bake this down as a texture and then paint out the edges you don't want, do the opposite for convex and concave edges so you end up with two masks. Or another method that doesn't give you quite as much control would be to use the AO node with an invert node to subtract the parts you don't need.

[@bivas108]

This tutorial was just on an another level. I have watched hours and hours worth of Blender tutorials in my life and the production quality of this video and the explanation given was stellar. WOW

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@thomasschreiber9884]

I think i dont speak only for my self when i say this: PLEASE, keep this quality, clearity, proffessionality in your future videos and you have a Subscriber forever!

[@anacatarina_teixeira]

THANK YOU for explaining what's actually going on behind the clicks, finally a tutorial that teaches you the tool and not just how to get a super specific result

[@KayouaXiong]

I just spent hours searching and tried many different methods and none worked or didn't work the way I wanted it to. Your explanation was the best! I also wanted to thank you for explaining why this method was better, it makes a huge difference. :)

[@Sanry.]

thats only work in cycles render

[@sim2g]

Absolute gem of a Blender tutorial with results you can use over and over again with your own projects. I'm your new follower! Big like.

[@alexvith]

I love it when someone manages to explain a concept in detail in just 5 minutes, plus all that's behind. Great video!

[@blank_9565]

This is like one of the first procedural texturing tutorials on youtube that actually explains whats happening and helps with understanding this complicated area of blender. Also this is just amazing Ive always used pointiness for edge masks but this is a lot simpler and quicker! Huge thanks man

[@victorpresle2695]

one of the cleanest easiest tutorial, not only is it incredibly useful and versatile it is also well made, well done

[@RyanKingArt]

Wow this is amazing! 👍‍👍‍

[@cosmicoverlap]

Most enthralling blender tutorial that I've viewed with copious delight. In all seriousness, thank you for making this video!!

[@adrianrock4610]

waw ... no words for this level of blender understanding... thanks for sharing bro... beautifull, clear and effective video

[@tiagopesce]

the nodes modeled in 3d was an awesome touch.. i just want to point i was NEEDING this exactly for ages, some low poly models never get good in regular AO and i gonna test this node-tree!

[@Pipubbles]

Genuinely this was done so beautifully, I am surprised it doesn’t have a million views

[@Smooth_Shading]

Wow, man. Incredible production value on a tutorial. I really like your style and delivery. Thanks for making this and keep up the great work my friend!

[@izzak6189]

To add wear to the edges mix a black and white grunge image in a mix color set to screen and use a color ramp to hone in the white and black values to break up the edges

[@oneiromultimedia1]

the fact that you recreated the nodes visually in blender is soooooo meta!!

[@brentogara]

This was awesome! One of the cleanest, best Blender tutorials I've seen, and you've explained the usefulness of dot product without hurting my brain with math! :D

[@mrdvus12]

Love how you animated the tutorial in blender too, its a great reminder of how blender can be used

[@rileyb3d]

Exactly! This just happens to be a blender tutorial with blender animation. Think about the limitless amounts of topics and ideas you can help visualize with animation!

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@kirloi]

Did i just watch an hollywood budget quality movie about a freaking custom node?? This is amazing!

[@maxleveladventures]

Ended up going with AO since I got a better, faster result on my particular model, but that and the other method you showed were both so much better than the pointiness method I was using (with horrible results). So thanks for showing 3 ways to do it when you could have just shown the one!

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@KaizenTutorials]

This is a very well done, clear and concise tutorial. Thanks!

[@dvl973]

I never thought Jon Snow would be teaching me blender

[@z-beeblebrox]

Turns out he knows something after all

[@scpk2246]

whoah! you just answered what's inside my head

[@brunoghisi2]

know nothing

[@lavatr8322]

Lmfao!

[@Frank_G_Finster]

I have seen lots of tutorials on this topic. This is the first one which really delivers nicely controllable results and is explained decently. Thank you very much!

[@RSpudieD]

That was great and to the point! What a well-done tutorial/ walkthrough! This method is pretty interesting and as you were explaining it, it all made sense, especially removing the two normal maps to get just the bevel information. That's a good trick! Good work!

[@shameless5445]

my god do more of these you explain it all so well

[@dimitrilalushi4693]

Thanks for those tutorials. It is evident that they are products of dedication. Every aspect of them is very well put: The examples, the clarity in narration , the background music etc, all are very nice. Now, as to the topic of the video: It is ok with the edge detection but the rarely mentioned need, in videos related to this topic, is that of finding a node arrangement which can differentiate between the indented and outdented edges (so that someone can put 'dirt' and 'decay' in the proper areas of a model). If you have any solution-answer to this need keep in mind, please, to make a tutorial about it.

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

I used to think such work was unnecessary, as I was working on low poly objects... started looking into blending edges with textures as beveling helps me to smooth edges, but increases geometry exponentially (when using many low poly objects). Looking forward to using this method too, as it works in cycles :D

[@Ethan_Avila]

A appreciate the fact that you visually explained what we are doing in the process. I almost never leave a comment but this is worth it. Subscribed

[@ArchbardWava]

Thank you, Riley! This may end up being the most important CG production of the year for me. Extremely useful, straight to the point and yields amazing results.

[@arusblog7356]

Your videos are so underrated! This is the best tutorial video, I've ever seen!)))

[@blancostudio3d]

thank you so much, I haad long time trying to do this, I was trying by free style, I am an independent comic creator starting to learn and use 3d models and blender to improve my work flow, but was hard convince 3d elements ina 2d environment and I need to make many things and send a lot of time trying to make things look good, with this method I can simply create with freedom any complex model and use your method to create a line art and I will start experimenting with colors and textures to save time, imagine I make a 3d environment that I can translate to a 2d environment almost instantly 😮that can save me tons of time, I have no words to thank you 🥰

[@SpiritGear]

How is this channel 1.8k subs !? this is incredibly well made and insightful!!!!

[@asherkennedy1276]

This dude knows what he's talking about and explains it well!

[@Flandelacasa]

this video made me subscribe! Please make more, they are good. You are good. You have raised the bar for tutorials for me, now.

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@retroeshop1681]

Wow, you really flexed with this tutorial, so much production when into this, no doubt I'm gonna get subscribed :D

[@Esteban_Santos]

This is the best produced node tutorial I’ve ever seen, no joking, everything is clear, looks as pro as it can get, thanks, keep the good work! Sub :)

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@SAGERUNE]

Holy shit dude.... might be the most concise tutorial i have ever watched.

[@rileyb3d]

Thanks! 😅

[@SZMIDEL]

Beautiful production level. Saved for future reference and subscribed for future blender wisdom

[@rileyb3d]

Thank you! I'm happy to have you on board. Let me know if you have any questions!

[@CaseyFaris]

What N INSANELY well done video. Great work.

[@chargel1347]

I would rate this tutorial perfect, in every aspect of it you put the details to make this amazing content, thank you.

[@Tumbolisu]

The standard definition of the dot product via addition and multiplication of the componenents is nice computationally, but gives no intuition for the result. For that, there is a second definition that gives far more insight: V . U = length( V ) * length( U ) * cos( angle between U and V ) Since we are dealing with normals here, it means that the lengths of the vectors are always 1. Therefore, the equation can be simplified: V . U = cos( angle between U and V ) And so we can see that this dot product gives us 1 when the vectors are the same, 0.5 when they are 60° appart, 0 when they are 90° appart, and so on.

[@rileyb3d]

Thanks for sharing your insight. Pinned so others can learn as well.

[@hashimseyyid951]

i dont think anyone can dislike this video. everything on point

[@batman3698]

Clever! The pointiness node was never quite good enough because it relies on how tight the edge loops are. This is much more useful. Thanks.

[@keterbinah3091]

not good enough , i need this tutorial to be confusing and long winded , this tut was niether, it was fast clear and to the point , (😁) have subbed , ive been using substance painter , last 5 yrs , dropped it yesterday , ( what realy happend , i downloaded , updated a gpu driver & substance painter wouldnt let me back into the version i was using before Adobe took over !) i cant aford heating , let alone monthly subscription, so im here , it was only the edgeware & dirt , in substance painter anyway. , thankyou sir , this is gold .👍

[@user-js7ud9du2y]

blender needs this built in and other types of edge,normal,screen spcac,AO handling mask nodes

[@lecona6218]

Doesnt seem to be working for me. Tried it on a cube but i just get a white box that flickers black when i change the from min value

[@chrionite]

for me it only works in cycles

[@MatthieuFremeaux]

A cube hasn't any concave/convex parts so it's not a good choice to test this technic on a cube

[@guilhermerizzo1984]

THIS! This is simply THE BEST tutorial format I've ever see! Congrats!

[@FelixMiklik-wn6tl]

thank you so much for this... coming from Redshift trying to find a 'curvature' node or this (your) approach is truly helpful... thank you!

[@rileynoname3529]

Wow. I am instantly in love with this! The presentation is so professional yet extremely accesible at the same time. You’ve definitely gained me as a permanent subscriber! :) good stuff!

[@zsoltoravecz1815]

Cool ide. I combined it with vertex color on the bevel radius, so you can tweak the size of the edge mask

[@antoineissahaswany3866]

You teach everything in an easy way and explain all the details behind what you're doing and how things work! thank you so much, this was aamazing!

[@SirLithen]

The production value alone earned my sub!

[@kocking]

This went Insaneo Style. Much appreciated!!!! the knowledge, the cinematics, music and efficiently delivering gold in 5 minutes. Epic.

[@andrey.003]

the background music is awesome

[@goat13]

I love this unique style of yours, and the way you presented the whole video was marvelous to watch and educational too, learnt a lot! Earned a sub! Keep it up

[@matbrady123456]

Riley Brown, this... was... EPIC! This is SO useful, and so professionally delivered, that you've just earned yourself another subscriber. Well done! This was amazing. I must say that Blender is continuously impressing me with the quality of their tutorials from its vibrant community, and this video is no exception to that. Again, so useful. Thank you so much.

[@rileyb3d]

Thank you for the thoughtful comment! I agree, the Blender community is a great place to learn and maintain 3D skills. It's also maturing and changing as time goes on.

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@jenovaizquierdo]

Dude really awesome tutorial and presentation. You made me subscribe, looking forward to see more from you.

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@jenovaizquierdo]

@@pixelstresd2971 I recommend you first to do it in a cube to see if there is a problem with your model, i think your model need to be unwrap

[@pixelstresd2971]

@@jenovaizquierdo right. Thankyou.

[@jenovaizquierdo]

@@pixelstresd2971 is a pleasure, happy to help 😊

[@KhalilBizani]

art and math combined. thanks for this Masterpiece. RESPECT

[@paulandrews__]

Some of my favourite Blender KZbinrs have already commented on your video, but I'm going to add my 2 cents to the comments pool anyway. Love your professional animation of the GUI elements and appreciate this workflow tip enormously. Thank you!

[@pixelstresd2971]

Here on my PC, the material is black. What did I do wrong?

[@RostyslavTkachenko]

Wow! You are cool and with style! Thanks for your work!!!

[@estefannysaucedopena850]

It's so pleasing. The setuping and mastering softs amazing.

[@jankschmid]

Damn, the quality is out of this world. Keep going!!

[@onexqw12]

Thankyou, I cant explain how helpful this is.... as you mention the other methods just don't quite cut it, this is just what I've needed

[@Mocorn]

Oh man, you're going places! It's rare that I subscribe after one video but this one did the trick. Outstanding stuff!

[@micro522]

Thanks for this. I learned more than one thing about Blender! great video

[@user-js7ud9du2y]

the level of quality of this tutorial

[@velocinaci]

i am not even a blender user but i love it!

[@peakzrl9995]

This is art

[@stormycatmink]

I noticed this picks up both internal as well as external edges. I'd like to differentiate the two (wear on the external, or convex edges, dirt on the concave edges). Since the dot product gives you the similarity of the vectors, if it's positive it should be pointing in the same direction, negative in the opposite direction (0 is pointing at right angles). So I assume the bevel for convex curves and concave curves should point different directions, thus the dot product should flip signs. This seems to be giving us a positive output in either direction as far as I can tell. Did I make a bad assumption here, or did I miss something?

[@rahuldasgupta1491]

This was brilliant. Your explanation on this has amazing clarity. Subscribed.Now to actually try it out.

[@eiplek1244]

I'm absolutely convinced that this is the best channel on KZbin. 😎

[@drunkenmuse]

This is the 10/10 content I'm looking for

[@Confuseddave]

I remember when the pointiness node was added, I was so excited for my procedural textures! Many struggles later, and I'm very glad to see a less finnicky method. :)

[@Irbinski]

Dude i've been looking for a good fix for this, thanks for saving my hide!!!

Watching this tutorial without paying made me feel like I'm stealing . It's the perfect tutorial ever

[@cinntoastcrunch8]

That's a pretty cool technique and I had no idea there even was a bevel node. Just wanted to point out you don't have any way of separating concavity from convexity which is a pretty big limitation. For instance at the start you were using it as a rust mask but rust doesn't accumulate on convex edges. You could maybe subtract AO from the final result but I'm not sure that would be a perfect solution

[@CosmoWenman]

This is a problem, and would prevent this technique from making realistic results for lots of scratch/highlight/dirt applications. And if we need to subtract AO in order to differentiate convex and concave we're back to the original limitations of just using AO in the first place.

[@cinntoastcrunch8]

@@CosmoWenman Haha yeah that's a fair point

[@CosmoWenman]

@@cinntoastcrunch8 maybe AO through a color ramp set to constant would be enough to separate concave and convex cleanly enough. The problem with AO for a dirtmap is shown in the beginning of this video--depending on geometry it can extend past where it's needed. But maybe compressed to on/off it might work.

[@cinntoastcrunch8]

@@CosmoWenman I think your original point still stands. You lose a lot of control as soon as you start relying on one of the other nodes

[@xmexian]

I think the point where it actually made me subscribe is that the video has actual good editing. and i'm like a sheep for great editing

[@MaxSonicUA]

One of the most well done videos about blender that I ever seen. Bravo!

[@nanchark-repositorio]

Awesome and outstanding literally saw a pointness tutorial, and then an AO one, this is a life saver

[@SuperemeRed]

Damn, this is top tier. Short, on to the point, and well presented, going just enough into the details. Great job and keep it up!

[@StevenPtasinski]

Well done! Knowing why and how to adjust is priceless.

[@scarit.]

now this is what i call a quality content. i'm lucky enough to find you my g ❤

[@cineguz]

Absolutely amazing classic cinematic approach to learning Blender.

[@Ruan3D]

Love it! KZbin needs more quality tutorials like this one!! Well done and thank you!

[@terrain4print]

I want a difference between outer edges (more wear) and crevices (more dirt). Is there some vector math magic that can do that?

[@sibience]

Someone else asked this so I'll just paste the same comment I made to them. In theory you could try one of two things to fix this. You could just bake this down as a texture and then paint out the edges you don't want, do the opposite for convex and concave edges so you end up with two masks. Or another method that doesn't give you quite as much control would be to use the AO node with an invert node to subtract the parts you don't need.

[@icepirate07]

You have a similar style like Daniel danielson which is what i really love about your videos. Great stuff!

[@aurelienthms]

Your channel is insane man

[@Montogoronto]

Thanks, it works perfectly.

[@t.hartig4570]

This is epic! I love how the tutorial is set up... No unnecessary bs around... Perfectly arranged with the goal described and always in focus. Detailed and not overloaded.... Und underlined with dramatic classical music...! Bam you made my day! Thx.

[@stevenlitvintchouk3131]

Excellent technique, and very well explained. The first use I've seen for the dot product operation.

[@teflonishighlytoxic222]

brilliant solution, short sweet, logic explained clearly, and I love the the little modeled nodes you animated for the video, lol such a simple little thing to do, but it really gives a ton of production value to your video.

[@shaneXstuff]

This is the most satisfying tutorial I've seen recently... I hit subscribe without hesitation!

[@Vondoodle]

I would gladly sell my house and all my possessions to watch another tutorial so flashy and LOUD