How to Add Dust to Any Model in Blender

[@madisonbertin1754]

To anyone confused by the "clean material" and "dust material" step, I was able to create a similar dust node via the Add menus. Add (shift+a) > Shader > Diffuse BSDF. It's not labeled "Dust" but it has the same options and created a similar effect. For the "clean material" I used the "principled BSDF" node that is there by default. Hope this helps!

[@Tacoman3209]

Thanks, big help

[@ZhuYuan0148]

Yeah I dunno why Blender Guru skipped that part, some newbie folks can be mislead by these labels on shader editor.

[@fullyleaded]

I used the texture map instead. works a lot better.

[@SnaptowelsNetConnect]

Very nice. If your a beginner that Fresnel will make such a huge difference with shiny surface like this.

[@kooky216]

I wish all tuts were this clear and concise.

[@shawnkearney2542]

dust should be thicker in crevices. Using pointiness or dirty vertex paint to control a noise texture scale which is then multiplied into the dust texture such to control dust density could be useful.

[@tearsofsoy4091]

Shawn Kearney Nice tip

[@goku21youtub]

dirt and thick dust is accumulating in crevices in moisture environments , fresh dust (less than a few months old) is NOT accumulating in crevices, and not in dry environments like an apartement

[@InbasagarNadar]

I was wondering about this from the last two days as i saw dust in my bookshelf but I didn't searched it in the internet. Today while surfing on the internet i saw this video as I already subscribed you. Really Useful trick.

[@AngusGiorgi]

Really useful and short tutorial, thanks

[@copypaste3526]

By far the best blender Tutorial I have seen so far. Keep em coming Guru. We await your wisdom.

[@voguart]

excellent technical thank you Andrew !

[@TheSkimek]

These short little tutorials are awesome :D I still enjoy your long and in-depth tutorials, but learning something in such a quick and easy way is amazing. Keep it up

[@songchai.p]

Short, clear and useful tutorial. Well done. Thank you so much, Andrew.

[@kevinmayor1439]

Amazing! Thinking about how dust is more visible at an angle and finding a way to simulate that is taking this to a whole new level. I would have never thought of that.

[@carloso5599]

This is great! I'm seriously happy that there are many people that can make money from doing what they love and helping us learners keep leraning. your content is seriously SO helpful! thank you so much!

[@MrPutuLips]

These shorter, more concise videos are, in my opinion, far better than your longer tutorials. As a suggestion, considering the latest affairs regarding space exploration, do you think it would be possible to create a tutorial on making the planet Jupiter (or a fictional gas planet) using the smoke simulator in Blender? I think this would be quite interesting and show of a lot of optimisation techniques, smoke & material settings, lighting techniques and particle/smoke flow force fields.

[@RaphaelBeguin]

MrPutuLips i will be interested too, but on making such object on blender you should try volumetrics shader instead.

[@MrPutuLips]

Is it possible to create those things like the eye and all of the bands of storms using volumetrics?

[@nathanlegoman4208]

MrPutuLips New Horizon's Pluto flyby! I'd love to see a tutorial on Jupiter! I wouldn't use volumetrics because on no part of the planet is it really translucent, the gases are too thick, but the smoke simulator would be a place to start.

[@sdhpCH]

the fist youtube video i saw in a while that has more than 560 thumbs up but not one down. that is what i call high standard. as we got used to from Sir Andrew Price great tutorial!

[@whopperlover1772]

sdhpCH Ikr. He has great ratings and for good reason!

[@JoshuaMerrill042]

Andrew, this "quick tip" format is awesome! Thank you!

[@metashrew]

I really like how you use different elements in each video, for instance: the geometry node Please keep doing this! i want to know how everything works!

[@MichaelHickman3D]

This was very helpful, thank you!!

[@minhaj_khan]

Super useful!!! I never thought it could be that easy

[@EnsignRho]

Fantastic, Andrew! Succinct. Educational. Powerful. Well done!

[@ricardodeleon965]

Nice as usual, your tutorials are of my favorites, well explaineds and very straightforward. Thanks!!

[@IronMan50780]

A tutorial for scratches would be amazing.

[@heroezofficial9398]

Plug a scratchy image texture into the principled bsdf roughness.

[@JaKlaro]

@@heroezofficial9398 you answered 4 years later xDD

[@rudmer_rotteveel]

Very useful and very well presented. I really like this short tutorial format. Thank you, Andrew!

[@jesperjee]

To me it´s incredible how people can know these things. There´s like 8 different types of nodes that does different things that Andrew just has in his head. How do you learn these things and how can the brain figure it out?? Back to folding paperplanes for me....

[@WolfersHD]

Mr Jee all you need is time, the more you mess around with nodes the more incredible effects you'll be able to achieve

[@refa42]

Mr Jee Small correction, it's Greg Zaal who is the author and most likely also provided the visuals for the video.

[@CubeRepublic]

Mr Jee research and doing tutorials, the same as us

[@cgcowboy]

Mr Jee I completely agree. This tutorial is awesome and I would have thought I knew very well how to add dust until I watched how these nodes are used. Most tutorials will prove that a node setup works without spending enough time explaining WHY it works. One thing that helps me is the Cycles Input Encyclopedia for this but it's a reference to be used when you know what area to explore. I would GLADLY listen to a tutorial for an extra few minutes if it meant I would have a solid understanding WHY something works so it would be top of mind the next time I need to use a similar technique.

[@0214hjalle]

Mr Jee When you see a tutorial, you see a rehearsed performance. You don't know anything about the way to get there. And it can be that the author of the tutorial is the inventor of….. or he heard it from a friend, read it in a book, website…

[@Lubble-]

Wow what an incredibly simple and well explained tutorial.......I mean for first time users of Blender it must be difficult to keep track and follow this, especially in the 2.8 update, but screw them lot right?

[@roglaf]

Great tutorial as always.

[@AbrahamAnimations]

Great video to "dust" up on my skills... :P

[@sergiomunoz9225]

Bruh

[@haresh6557]

brush up :P

[@earlylights2852]

Stunning! No other words! Looks seriously good!

[@TheTakUser]

Followed the tutorial and got some excellent looking dust. One question, would there be a way to create a procedural mask for the dust, so it gets smeared in some areas, but not others?

[@owlofminerva1397]

*Wow, thanks for the Tutorial! ;)* But when trying it out i discovered something, that makes it even more realistic! Becouse when mixing the Layer weight facing with the seperated RGB it causes that when you look from top on your model, there will be also white material(Later Dust) on the sides of the mesh, because of the low angle. And this is of course unrealistic because there is no dust on the side and the bottom parts of the mesh. But it's possible to easily fix this by putting the seperated blue channel not only in the colour input of the mixer, but also in the Fac!(1:16) So the angle will only affect the brightness of the faces looking up and all the others will stay black :) (sorry for my bad english)

[@owlofminerva1397]

V NE EDIT: This will also increase the affection of the dust density when tilting the angle. If you think the affection is too strong but you want to keep the effect from the comment above, just put a "math" node between the seperated Blue Channel and the fac of the mixer and devide it by 1.3 or something like that (the lower the number the less dust will appear by looking at the face from the top but keep it over 1)

[@goku21youtub]

@@owlofminerva1397 theres no rule to this , you have to eyeball it for every new scene/object

[@raw_pc]

Yeees, this is it ! I was looking for a solution to separate those planes.. Thank you!

[@salaheddinetiar]

Nothing to do with Blender. I came here cause I was telling myself "Man, whenever I see something in 3D It's always too clean" then I started searching and here I am. Thanks btw

[@goku21youtub]

play fallout , everything dirty and rusty

[@matthewjeffery3686]

Thanks, good simple but effective technique.

[@schafftl]

Thank you! That will increase my renders in the future a lot!

[@CubeRepublic]

Great tutorial , learned so many new things.

[@Anonymousjoe64]

Love these quick tutorials!

[@VoidloniXaarii]

thank you! hope you show more such original and interesting shaders!

[@mjayka554]

Very useful. Love your tutorials which have helped so much. Thanks

[@Mark_Alloway]

Thank you Andrew. As always, your tutorials are informative and very well done. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

[@Zyrane]

Awesome this quick tipp will probably save some of my Renders for my Portfolio ^^

[@onesandzeroes]

Useful, thanks!

[@VoidloniXaarii]

thank you! would be so cool if you made a tutorial showing how this (or other techniques) could be used to create some kind of procedural terrain shader for geometry generated with ANT landscape

[@Guilherme5988]

Amazing tutorial!

[@84wilku]

My Master :D your tutorials are the best in the world. Thank you very much for your work

[@alephgates7519]

thank you... idk will try the layered weight for sorta fuzzy flower petals too

[@letsdoitwithOferK]

ok... this is final.... YOU ARE A GOD!!! I was asking my self how to do this...

[@ragnardimarzo]

Thanks for your excellent tutorial!

[@GuitarHickNick]

awesome, so short and sweet!

[@veggiet2009]

That's probably the best tip ever

[@tedonieuwenhuis6707]

Very useful, thanks a lot ! It looks really realistic I leave the vacuumcleaner in the closet...

[@leunamtzam]

Thumbs up, Thanks a lot for the video and the Texture!

[@pittore86able]

Elegant tutorial

[@MrDoboz]

wow, that was a real quick one

[@adityamenon2772]

This is so awesome!! Your channel is awesome!

[@Maskl1n]

Great video. Just a quick tip - you can substitute the combination of clamped Colour Mix and Separate RGB nodes by using Separate XYZ instead. Otherwise really useful info here, thanks Andrew!

[@GregZaal]

***** You can use the Separate XYZ node (it's effectively identical), but you'll still need to clamp it :)

[@marcdraco2189]

Nice one Andy!

[@ashutoshprasad7442]

This Trick Is Awesome

[@wulfisman]

wow thanks Andrew ill use this for my render and see how it affects on it :)

[@DaanMiles]

wow. thank you for tutorial like this. I really like fast paced tutorials. :)

[@Friedrich-Fluecken]

Hi, thank you and after all Happy new year!

[@yanndbs]

fantastic Mr Oz ! Thanks a lot !

[@EmilMacko]

Is there a way to keep the "top normal" vectors on a character after deforming it with the Armature Modifier? I've made the dust procedurally and the dust coordinates stay true after deformation, but the "top normal" keeps staying on top and not where it was before deformation. I've tried to look for a way to affect the normal/vector value with values that stay the same after deformation (like the Generated vectors). I don't want to have to resort to UV mapping.

[@ninjapenguinblock]

Not sure, but my suggestion is maybe look into trying to bake the texture onto the object, so that texture will deform with the model.

[@CTRL_SMarcos]

Excelente.Muchas gracias por los videos y por las texturas.

[@0zyris]

The tutorial is from 2015 before the Principled BSDF was introduced.

[@Frostuin]

Very helpful! thanks!

[@ma.ysabelleung7739]

pls do an updated version !!!

[@SviatoslavPetrov]

Nice tutor!

[@joebuehrer]

Andrew, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do one for moss!!!

[@KillzKrazy02x]

Oh hey! I recently subscribed to you.. XD

[@joebuehrer]

KillzKrazy thanks! ^_^

[@nicep83]

yes it's nice tutorial ..pls make a tutotial for sand

[@_vusa]

I don't know if this is just me but I found my results to be a lot better when using subtract instead of overlay in the mixrgb node as it seemed to work better in Filmic

[@mutedsounds2k]

Maybe the same can be achieved by using a simple Noise texture (Scale set to a large number for a fine grain, and Details pumped up to 32 or even more for a harder salt/pepper effect), followed by a ColorRamp (to adjust the strength)... Just so to save a 20MB (!!!!!!) of texture in your .blend file.

[@EdwardPanzer]

as much as i dont have a use for it now , still nice to know ^^

[@WrenchMonkey91]

i didn't even know geometry nodes were a thing back then. trying to do this in 2023 and having some trouble, the nodes seem a little different' and the download link no longer works. This looks simple enough tho, i'll try figuring it out , thanks!

[@vageloukos]

Great as always *****!! When will you enlighten us about PBR?

[@PulverfassProduction]

Would like to see how you can make realistic sand piles in outdoor scenes :D

[@giorginocinzietti8849]

Thank you!

[@crea2000]

Great! thanks Andrew!

[@CesarSG]

Yeah!, just a great tutorial!

[@thaaer_shaabo3130]

César Salcedo i don't think you need to see it :3 i have qustion what is the best graphics card can we used to render and i heart that the cuda algorithem should be support to be more relastic and fast result regards :)

[@CesarSG]

Well, for me, the best graphic card is nvidia gforce gtx 980ti

[@iangraham6730]

Can this be used in Unity? Like, can I save the mask and add it to objects in Unity?? It looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

[@MindfinderX]

Simpel, easy, amazing -> BlenderGuru-Vid :D

[@3ToNiK3]

AHHHH amazing, THANK YOU!

[@visaac]

When i used Normal to get Up facing i used Separate XYZ - Z component Since its normal and it shows rotation of a surface and it does it from -1 to 1 Using Map Range we can map it from 0 to 1 and plug in color ramp to control all of the data I know its been 6 years, but maybe it will help someone to get more control over it

[@kipchickensout]

now i can make dust. but i watched this to understand the nodes xD i dont know what some of them actually do..

[@Yotrymp]

Keep learning how to use them and they'll start to make more sense. Also reading up on them in the manual and watching some explanations on KZbin may help.

[@kipchickensout]

Tymprasta hm

[@TeenstarletsInfo2015]

brilliant!

[@ACBlenderTutorials]

Wow, I love the idea of manipulating the normal output. But, I have to disagree with "mixing" it with the facing output. That puts dust on parts of the underside. I think "multiply" would be more appropriate.

[@puck973]

Hey Andrew, I am a big fan of your work, and I am trying to complete your "Slick Smartphone " tutorial but I cannot find the phone home screen texture you used. I tried using another, but it just doesn't have the same effect. If you could help me out it would mean a lot.

[@kentozapater8972]

where is that dust bsdf in blender 2.9?

[@21Liberdade]

Are there any specific settings for the Clean/Dust Materials? Because it's precisely when I plug those into the rest of the node setup that I lose the effects.

[@EmilMacko]

How would you go about preserving the normal vectors when the model gets deformed by an armature? I'd love to have a character covered in dust, where the dust doesn't morph around to always stay on top whenever the character moves their arm or something like that. Edit: I figured out how to do it per-object. You plug in a Vector Transform and set it from World to Object, which preserves the normal Z shade during rotation. But for bone-deformation it's still a mystery.

[@hyruleorchestra4339]

Emil Macko Maybe bake the mask as a texture?

[@Utsab_Giri]

Hey Andrew, thank you for doing this tutorial. How would I go about simulating the dust? I have a car driving in a desert setting, and I'd like for it to kick up some dirt. Thank you again!

[@tbroadhurst2915]

I quite new to blender and I would like to know what and how you get a "Clean Material". Sorry to be inconvenient but I not sure whenever the Clean material is a combined/default material or a feature of blender. I be grateful to know how. Even if it means I'm a great big dumb dumb. :)

[@yanndbs]

Big thanks !!!

[@Skovidesign]

How about applying the image texture as a normal map for the shader that's slightly elevated. Wouldn't that push the realism a little bit further?

[@williamwilson7857]

Can this added dust or dirt, be removed by flushing water effect on it --> to wash any other object ? How to do this ? Thank you

[@sudd3660]

is it not easier and more accurate if you just project a dust texture from above?

[@aux_anges]

Stanford should know better: the Happy Buddha is not the Buddha, it's Budai from Chinese mythology. Many thanks for the tutorial, the condensed format is great.

[@14shyuga14]

You're my Hero!!!

[@kaiser9321]

But how would I use the noise texture to make it dusty?

[@worldsbestartchannel]

thank u

[@jordanmusleh6305]

how to make sand like the beach or something like that..??

[@xmrdee]

micro displacement

[@darksyner7682]

The same logic can be applied if you wanted to add snow on top of an object. Just leave the fresnel part out.