Beech Wood for Chess and Checkers | Realistic Rendering

[Bacchinif6]

Hey everyone! I hope you're all doing great and enjoying your holidays.

I'm opening this thread because I'm about to start a project that involves rendering chess and checkers pieces made of beech wood. The overall look that I want to achieve is the following:

- slightly visible grains
- pretty light base material
- some pieces need to be painted
- soft to the touch
- minor scratches on some pieces

What is the best way to proceed? Ideally I should work on a single piece and then copying / pasting the same material to the other pieces changing just some variables (i.e. grain directions and so on). Apart from that... is there a specific tutorial I should follow? Any high-res texture map you could recommend for pieces that are generally small?

Thank you very much in advance :).

Here some reference pictures:

[Bacchinif6]

I'm attaching here the first try that I've made. What I don't generally like is the following:

- Not enough contrast on the piece

- Too flat looking

- I'm having issues with the texture map. On the right piece I opted for a cylinder mapping, but there a problem in one of the sides as all the lines converge there. The right piece has an UV mapping, but it seems very unrealistic to me. Any hints for the mapping?

- Rendering is extremely slow and I don't know if it depends on the texture map I'm using and / or on the piece I 3D modeled. I have an RTX Quadro 5000 16 GB (Max - Q, Laptop). As an attached file the GPU usage while rendering which, for some reason, is not constant.

I was checking some threads here on the forum and this is, more or less, the kind of finish I'm looking for:
https://forum.keyshot.com/index.php?topic=6069.0

[Bacchinif6]

I'm trying with different texture maps, bumps and displacements... but I'm still not very satisfied.

The result on the left is too harsh but definitely more realistic. The one on the right is probably too flat but closer to the final color that I'm looking for.

I've also attached pictures of the result I'm looking for.

Any hints to better wrap the texture in the circled area?

[Bacchinif6]

up?

[INNEO_MWo]

Just tweak two things:
1. rotate the texture the Y axis along the center axis of the part.
2. Change the UV angle to 90.


This issue is caused by the cylindrical or spherical mapping.


Perhaps you can share your scene, so other users can help to improve the material.

[Bacchinif6]

Just tweak two things:
1. rotate the texture the Y axis along the center axis of the part.
2. Change the UV angle to 90.


This issue is caused by the cylindrical or spherical mapping.


Perhaps you can share your scene, so other users can help to improve the material.

Hey, thank you for your suggestions.

The wood is starting to look a bit more realistic and I'd say that I'm pretty happy with the result even if the method you suggested is producing very unnatural concentric lines in the middle of the checker.

I'm uploading here my scene because I need some help in making the paint on top of it look more realistic.

Actually it should not look like "paint" but more of an ink print.

Anybody can help here?

I think it just neet to be retouched the label on the material graph

for some reason i can't upload the scene

let's try this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yBaYMsrRny6JYpSXC-urOtmkfr2BtKFE?usp=sharing

[INNEO_MWo]

I've made some adjustments on the material. You can chose between the 3 different Multi Material instances.
Also changed the environment a bit.
Also you'll find an extra model set with split-geometry.

So, I don't have access to your Google Drive. So you can download the scene from my One Drive: https://inneosolutionsgmbh-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/mwodarz_inneo_com/EdHHtP3yO7lPlE_SS0PDD1QBF7y7nuFmgbmEkmrBUwnjwg?e=spbPaY

[Bacchinif6]

I've made some adjustments on the material. You can chose between the 3 different Multi Material instances.
Also changed the environment a bit.
Also you'll find an extra model set with split-geometry.

So, I don't have access to your Google Drive. So you can download the scene from my One Drive: https://inneosolutionsgmbh-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/mwodarz_inneo_com/EdHHtP3yO7lPlE_SS0PDD1QBF7y7nuFmgbmEkmrBUwnjwg?e=spbPaY

Here I am.
Sorry again for not replying earlier but I haven't been on the forum for a while.

Thank you very much for the scene provided, but in the end I ended up with a decent result (at least for me) tweaking a bit the texture map / image style.
If you want I can share it.