V-Ray | Procedural RUSTY METAL Shader | VRayBlendMtl, Procedural Masks, VRayDirt, AO & VRayBumpMtl

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a procedural Rust Effect that with the help of special masking techniques can be applied to any kind of geometry regardless of it's UV's. You can use this technique to quickly add procedural details to your assets. Like this you can texture a huge amount of assets very efficiently.
We will discover what are the advantages of procedural masks and why you should use them. I will then show you my preferred way how to create an easy to control render setup for a Rusty Metal Shader and walk you through each step. We will discover the basics of Ambient Occlusion or VRayDirt and how we can use VRayTriplanar Textures to procedurally project any kind of details on our assets.
I am using 3ds Max and V-Ray 5 in this demo but you can also use the same techniques for older versions such as V-Ray NEXT and V-Ray 3.
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:14 - Reference and Result
01:38 - Procedural Masks
02:20 - Additional Ressources
02:58 - Mask Generation
18:13 - Shader Blending
20:23 - VRayBumpMaterial
24:44 - Outro
Be sure to subscribe to the channel in order to be notified about upcoming tutorials :-)
Check out my Patreon for all my scene files, additional videos or just to support this channel :-)
/ jonasnoell

[@JonasNoell]

🔥EXCLUSIVE V-Ray 20% Discount: vray.jonasnoell.com Check out Patreon for all my scene files, bonus videos, a whole course on car rendering or just to support this channel 🙂 patreon.com/JonasNoell

[@user-kn7tt9gr7z]

your tutorial is so easy to learn! The best 3ds max tutorial ever! not just show the way to succeed it but show us how to think!! Love it !please bring us more tutorial like this!

[@JonasNoell]

Glad it helped, and yes it's most important to understand the reasons behind a technique than just pushing buttons :-)

[@vzdragon]

This would of been so helpful while i was working on my rust material creation for work a few months back, I wish i found this sooner. Thank you for making this.

[@mrcleglaw256]

this is really advenced level stuff. im glad that i found this video because i want to operate on this level and you show it 0 to 100. its hard to get everything on one watch, but you can be sure i will watch and watch again as much as needed to fully comprehend this. such a golden content. thanks, subbed.

[@ss54dk]

your channel is the most powerful 3dsmax material tutorial in youtube in the world i even seen, is very very amazing! keep it on please

[@MrTPGuitar]

I love it, its like the next iteration of Neil Blevins' setup! I'm adopting it! :)

[@imadboutkhourst]

Master jonas noell ! all your video are awesome ! thumbs up !

[@jes01]

Really good trick with the output map and clamp output, did this before with a gradient ramp, but your way its more convenient and also decrease rendertimes a tiny bit! thank you!

[@JonasNoell]

That's great to hear! Every milisecond counts :)

[@Mr1Zizou]

More people must see this magic .. thank youuuu

[@enzodavide]

Amazing work my friend greetings from Brazil

[@chistoprosto5859]

That's pure gold!

[@JonasNoell]

No that’s pure rust! 😜 Thx for your feedback!

[@pixelquarry]

Yet another great tutorial! I've learned a lot. Thanks!

[@pixelquarry]

What actually happens with mask values beyond 0 or 1? It can't hide or show more, can it?

[@JonasNoell]

To be honest often times it is not a really big problem and the result looks and behaves the same. But I have run into few occasions though where there were differences between the clamped and unclamped mask, I think it depends on the specific situation. So since a mask is just supposed to have values between 0 and 1 I would just make it a good habbit to clamp your output to this range as it will help to avoid potential problems further down the line. But I admit that for years I haven't been doing it like this myself and still managed to survive :-) It probably depends on if you wanna look at it more from an artistic/creative or more from a technical/mathematical correct angle...

[@pixelquarry]

Jonas Noell math and I aren’t the best of friends. 😉 Thanks for clarifying.

[@biju5049]

Excellent tutorial !!

[@ogarga666]

awesome!

[@TheAntonyart]

Just EPIC!!! thx

[@wilismatrix9847]

Thank you for the tutorial, I got confused at some moments when you switched to compact material editor because I don't use it at all. It would be better if you keep using same layout and workflow during the tutorial !

[@JonasNoell]

If it would be up to me I would be using the Compact Material Editor for the entire time. :D I normally don't use the Slate Material Editor at all in my daily work

[@HenryWism]

Goooooood stuff !!!

[@pratiklanjekar930]

thankyou,beacuse of you i have completed my project

[@JonasNoell]

Awesome :D

[@tweakxxx]

Thank you thank you very much I am looking for this video a year before now I got it very very very much useful 🤩😍🥰😇

[@radeongamer8558]

Man where were you 🤯🤯 your tutorial is amazing 🔥🔥

[@JonasNoell]

I was always here :-) Check out my other tutorials as well!

[@ricardo1950]

Thank you very much

[@Faayaz]

you just awsomeeeeeeee 😍👌👌

[@tausifkhan2189]

Feeling blessed to found you....this tutorial is fabulous. Can you please help by creating a tutorial where we can just damage the edges by some procedural mapping with displace or something. I tried but can't figure out the right way... And thank you so much again for this great tutorial.

[@JonasNoell]

Hi, displacement is hard to do on sharp edges, that's why I would try to do it with textures for bump or normalmaps and generate them on the edges. Real displacement is a big more complicated, but I will write it on my list! Thx for the suggestion!

[@gizyamirejibi]

Awesome tutorial, thank you! by the way, ambient occlusion sometimes follows not only the object corners but the model topology lines (edges) as well, can you recommend how to remove them?

[@michaelryley]

Hi, I'm finding your tutorials useful, I am a Cinema 4D user learning V-ray but a lot of it applies. One question though, would you have any idea what the c4d equivalent would be for the output node?

[@crickhiren1]

Thanks for the tutorial. Can you please explain how did you added render elements names like reflection, refraction, normals instead vray reflection, vray refraction, vray normals etc. because I can see bump in your normal but can not see bump in vray normal!!! I mean, it is showing in RGB but not in vray normals. Please check 22:02

[@cullylad9]

Great tutorial Jonas thank you. Just one question. Why when building layer 4 do you go for a white vray colour node as opposed to black? Would this not mean you then wouldn’t need to flip occluded and unoccluded in the vray dirt node. Just confused me a bit but I’m probably missing something somewhere.

[@JonasNoell]

Hi, because I am using screen blending mode in the end to add the mask from layer 4 on top of layers 1-3 below. Think about that I need to reveal my rust on the part that are white in the mask, if the base color is black you would only be able to take away from the mask.

[@cullylad9]

@@JonasNoell Thanks so much. Find all your tutorials most helpful.

[@emf321]

I'm using Vray 3.7 which does not show "Inner Occlusion" for VrayDirt, under "mode". So, you might need to change your description box info about this working "for older versions such as V-Ray NEXT and V-Ray 3". Your alternative is to "invert normal" for VrayDirt which also shows the outside edges of your object. The problem here is VrayDirt gets triggered by all objects in your scene, not just by the applied object. So when your object gets closer to another object, your "rust" area will change - get larger. Your alternative here is to use VrayCurvature, but this material has no input nodes, like "radius" or "distance" to plug in noise maps.

[@JonasNoell]

Hi, you are correct as in V-Ray 5 they renamed the modes, so invert normals became inner occlusion and so on. For "Ambient + inner occlusion"-mode you would need to combine 2 VRayDirts in 3.7 (one with inverted normals and one without). Nonetheless functionally you can achieve the same result, that's why I claim that you can also use older versions to achieve the same result :-) As for the VRayDirt being triggered by all objects in the scene, that is also correct. So in the circumstances where that poses a problem you can chose to consider same object only and this way it wouldn't. Also you can use excludes/includes to define which objects affect your dirt. The VRayCurvature can achieve similar results but it is functionally different to the VRayDirt and would mask out slightly different areas as it doesn't check for ambient occlusion but rather for surface tensions. Nonetheless also perfectly fine to use this if that works fine for you!

[@emf321]

@@JonasNoell Oh, why didn't i see the "consider same object only" tickbox?!? This solves all my issues. Yes, then this can totally work fine in older versions of Vray. Thanks.

[@hamidsalami7022]

Thanks for this amazing tutorial! the scene files are only for patreon members?

[@JonasNoell]

Hi, thanks for your comment! Yes that's right, the scene files and bonus video for all tutorials are available for patreon members :) You can check out here: www.patreon.com/JonasNoell

[@keithyakouboff8755]

Unfortunately Maya does not seem to have a comparable composite node or output node. And, in the end, the edges mask I did create did not work. Only the underlying paint showed.

[@JonasNoell]

I think Maya has a layered texture node that should do the same

[@jeremylife10]

Hello Jonas, your tutorial is amazing. Subscribed. 👏💕. I have a question on the Shader Blending. I followed all your procedures and I am getting similar to your composite mask result but when I Blend the base material, rust material and the mask copied from the composite layers as you did, I did not get the best result as yours. Hope you could help me. Thanks 😊

[@jeremylife10]

And this is my shader blending render preview drive.google.com/file/d/1qCiIT_MdOPjn2q6pwC52NubX_ivoK7Ce/view?usp=sharing

[@JonasNoell]

It's hard to tell from this picture, but maybe you can check first that your mask is correct by just building a blendmaterial with simple lightmaterials in black and white and try out your mask in this example. If the mask appears correct you can just exchange both lightmaterials with your original shaders. Overall it could also mean that your mask is lacking contrast, you can put a colorcorrection in front of the whole mask and lower the gamme while increasing the gain.

[@jeremylife10]

@@JonasNoell Hi, Thank you so much for your reply. I tried what you said by exchanging the lightmaterials to my shaders. The rust effect started to show up now but not exactly on what shown on the black and white mask that I did. I suspect that there is something wrong with the values applied on the radius under vray dirt parameters. I will try again to get more closer to your example. Once again, thanks a lot. 😊

[@alexandrsmirnov1498]

thx a lot, but can u show final material in normal slate material editor?...

[@JonasNoell]

Hi, sure there you go :) www.jonasnoell.com/downloads/tutorials/rust.jpg I used normal bitmaps in this case, you can or should probably use VRayBitmaps instead

[@almostdead9567]

Hey do u think u will do some vray 5or 6 maya tutorials ?? , There are very few vedios out there for latest maya , also can u tell me ur system spec , i want to upgrade my system as wells for rendering.

[@JonasNoell]

I don't own any Maya license, so for the time being most likely no. But I think everything is easily transferrable over to Maya. V-Ray is almost the same in Maya. 3990X, 64GB, RTX 3060TI

[@FerryPasschier]

Nice tutorial mate! I was trying to follow along in Maya Vray, but Maya has no VrayColor nor a Composite Map. Anyone here knows how to get the same level of flexibility as seen in this material, but then with Vray for Maya?

[@JonasNoell]

I think you can use a layered texture node which has color built in and supports layers with Alpha Channels...

[@ramdpshah]

thanks for the awesome tutorial, i was waiting for this procedural shading,... is it possible to to show the correct way to export texture if i want to use the model in other software

[@JonasNoell]

Hi, in this case you would need to back your masks and textures. It would require that you unwrap your model with unique UV's and then basically bake out each channel (diffuse, glossiness, normal, etc) and the mask into a texture. Haven't really tried that yet though :)

[@saifaliksa8085]

This is really good thanks a lot...but I got some problem here when I connect the maim material then the only main material shows I mean the base material. And when I change the values from VrayDirt then something shows I mean the coat material but not the desired result like yours..please help

[@JonasNoell]

Hi, I can't really understand your questions, sorry...

[@saifaliksa8085]

@@JonasNoell Sorry for that..where I can connect you to share the screenshots?

[@ingameswetrust9812]

hello, I'm watching you! and your tutorials are very interesting! but I use vray5 and in the blend material there are some attributes called "Coat Dup" to which the material from the first coat automatically connects, which scares me a little because it doesn't look like yours!

[@JonasNoell]

Coat Dup? I'm not really sure what that means, if you can upload a picture or so somewhere then I can have a look :)

[@ingameswetrust9812]

@@JonasNoell firts of all in the compact editor material dont show the material that i have made in slate then i cant conect the vray blend materials (mask) to another to another blend materials (where is the first coat base color + rust + and the mask)

[@ingameswetrust9812]

@@JonasNoell i send you on facebook :D

[@martinsmith1262]

V-ray 5, no need v-ray blend material, for create rust metal

[@JonasNoell]

Hi thanks for your comment :-) Do you care to elaborate? While you don’t require a blend material to create a generic rust shader, you do need a blend material to add rusty parts on your metal as you are mixing two totally different shaders with totally different physical properties (Metallic base layer and dielectric rust layer). I agree that In theory there would be a way to mask out the metalness parameter in one material but it would over complicate everything as you would also need to mask out different glossiness, ior, diffuse and bump values. I think you are mixing that up with PBR materials where you would already have textures for all those parts. In my setup I am creating all of this procedurally during render time.

[@marcusgideon]

I'm pretty sure there's a shorter way of doing this with a same output, hmmmm?

[@JonasNoell]

Well, if you are so sure why don’t you tell us?

[@marcusgideon]

@@JonasNoell I don’t mean it like that. Im sorry. Im just thinking there could be less tedious way of the process. I don’t know too 😄😄

[@JonasNoell]

Sure some stuff can be omitted but it will change the look. At the very minimum you require 2 shaders plus a black and white mask. You can also paint the mask in PS if that’s faster for you 😀

[@marcusgideon]

@@JonasNoell and that is why Ive subscribed and followed you for quite some time now brother 🙂🙂. Thanks a lot Jonas! God bless you.

[@r3dm4il]

was following well untill you started using classic material editor, you lost me. not used to classic. consistency please.

[@JonasNoell]

That’s alright :) Later tutorials use Slate consistently whenever the network becomes a little bit more complex though… Thanks for the feedback!

[@r3dm4il]

@@JonasNoell your tutorials are phenomenal, should have added, thank you for your time on making these.

[@makhloufanis4564]

your technique is so difficult ... you have to simplify it

[@JonasNoell]

Ok, I will change my whole workflow because of what you said 👍