Bump too "sharp"

[mattjgerard]

So, in this image, I'm liking the direction I'm going for the cast metal part on top, but the bump texture looks a bit to sharp for me, I'd like to soften it. Its a cast metal material, and it has a bit of a concave pebbled texture to it. I'm using some image maps for the bumps and roughness, so I there's not much to adjust. Is this where I need to request the "Blur Map" node for the matgraph? Would blurring the image texture in photoshop point me in the right direction for what I'm looking for? I'm off to try that now, but figured there might be a different way of doing it too. I like procedural stuff, but I'm tied a bit with using these image maps. I understand it might be a lighting thing too. Link to the .ksp-

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AgcdhMAqF6Q3gc4WLOb490sjdGzw4Q

[TGS808]

I see you are referring to your material as "Sandblasted Aluminum". Esben did a tutorial on "Bead blasted Aluminum" a while back. It looks somewhat similar to what you are going for and it's procedural. Might be worth a look.

https://youtu.be/ouxIy_rfw4k

[Will Gibbons]

Hey Matt, I think your material looks really quite nice. I like how raw it looks... not too shiny. The color is good too. I am confused on one area near the hinge where it looks like the texture goes from sharp to blurry. Thought it was DoF but the bottom part doesn't show it, so not sure what it is. Personally, I'd use the procedural noise texture. You can displace it once you get it set the way you like it. The sliders should give you the ability to not quite blur, but round it off a bit so it doesn't look so sharp. You can still use some of your image maps for the color or roughness though! Also, if the odd texture seam where it goes from blurry to sharp is a result of the image texture, the procedural one should fix that. Good luck!

[designgestalt]

hello Matt,
I wrote a "method" here, that simulates somewhat near to a blur in KS:

https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=22776.new#new

not sure, if that works, that is the first time I try to add a quote from another topic.
but coming back to your question:
PS would be the way to go to add blur to whatever kind of bump or normal map.
I am sure the way to create a procedural texture as Will suggest would work in this case as well, but if you have some sort of texture that can not be reproduced procedural I would go ahead and tweak it with the 3D tools in PS until I am content!

cheers
designgestalt

[mattjgerard]

Hey Matt, I think your material looks really quite nice. I like how raw it looks... not too shiny. The color is good too. I am confused on one area near the hinge where it looks like the texture goes from sharp to blurry. Thought it was DoF but the bottom part doesn't show it, so not sure what it is. Personally, I'd use the procedural noise texture. You can displace it once you get it set the way you like it. The sliders should give you the ability to not quite blur, but round it off a bit so it doesn't look so sharp. You can still use some of your image maps for the color or roughness though! Also, if the odd texture seam where it goes from blurry to sharp is a result of the image texture, the procedural one should fix that. Good luck!

Thanks will, I'm really starting to get the hang of layering noise/specular maps to get surfaces that aren't perfectly even across the object, and that is really helping my images. As for the blurry part, I see what you are talking about. If you click on the image, it will pop to 100% zoom, and that blur will go away for the most part. At least that is what happens in my browser window. The other part of that is the CAD for this thing is really messed up, so there may be some mapping issues that need fixing, the curved surfaces of the round part of the center of the hinge are separate pieces from the rest of the casting, so the normals are all over the place. Mostly got fixed by recalculating them in the geo editor, but not 100%.

I'll look at recreating the texture maps with procedural and see how close I can get. Even just a fall off or rounding as you say would be helpful, just a touch, not much. Thanks for the tips!

[mattjgerard]

I see you are referring to your material as "Sandblasted Aluminum". Esben did a tutorial on "Bead blasted Aluminum" a while back. It looks somewhat similar to what you are going for and it's procedural. Might be worth a look.

https://youtu.be/ouxIy_rfw4k

I have that one in my youtube "watch later" list, I guess I know what I'm doing over lunch!

[mattjgerard]

hello Matt,
I wrote a "method" here, that simulates somewhat near to a blur in KS:

https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=22776.new#new

not sure, if that works, that is the first time I try to add a quote from another topic.
but coming back to your question:
PS would be the way to go to add blur to whatever kind of bump or normal map.
I am sure the way to create a procedural texture as Will suggest would work in this case as well, but if you have some sort of texture that can not be reproduced procedural I would go ahead and tweak it with the 3D tools in PS until I am content!

cheers
designgestalt

I'll have to give the weight slider trick a try. Gaussian blur utility node would be perfect for this sort of thing!!!

[DMerz III]

I love the falloff feature in the Noise Fractal procedural texture. Esben does a great job of showcasing the power by blending the Noise (texture) and Noise (fractal) via Bump Add node.

Here's a little graphic I made to demonstrate the difference with fall off. To the left is a fall of 1, showcasing a 'low waterline' of the texture. In the middle is falloff of 3...this raises the 'waterline' so only the middle to top peaks show, and my fave is all the way to the right, which has a fall of 6. Only the tippy tops of the peaks are exposed. This is great for creating something which is mostly smooth but has some slight pockets of imperfection; paint or lacquer with some slight 'dust' trapped beneath.

You might need to view in full-res to see the quality of the right-most image.
Edit;

Added it on its own for more clarity.

[TGS808]

Super cool, David. That is definitely useful and helpful.

[mattjgerard]

That is fantastic, David. This one is getting bookmarked, and will post updated to my image. As usual, the marketing peeps are just appalled at the thought of making the image look exactly like the actual object (the actual product casting is fairly rough and unpolished) but they keep veering towards this artificially smooth and perfect surface look. So, while what I 'm learning here might not make it public, the techniques will definitely be employed elsewhere in my application images where I can take more liberty with scene objects that aren't our products. Thanks everyone!

[Esben Oxholm]

Very nice demo, David!

[DMerz III]

That is fantastic, David. This one is getting bookmarked, and will post updated to my image.

Super cool, David. That is definitely useful and helpful.

Very nice demo, David!

Thanks, everyone! Will be using the right most technique, for candy render 

Also...if you play with Negative values, it's similar to reversing the bump height, and that will create some very crude hard texture, which could be useful on certain harsh surfaces.