Most sources I have found like to use images for these kinds of textures, I have been experimenting with nodes to try making a close resemblance but not had much success. I can get somewhat close with the sand pattern, but the way to blend the colours, and how to get the grainy appearance, elude me yet. I have not managed to make anything even close to looking like dirt, but did stumble upon a great chocolate icing! Can these be made using only cycles nodes, or are imported images required?
Creating these things with a procedural method is a bit of a challenge. (May be worthwhile though.) Noise or voronoi affecting displacement helps. Trying some stuff with normal mapping may be interesting too. It’s the variation in shadows on a surface that helps sell a granular appearance. (Color alone by itself can only do so much.)
Yeah I am finding out how challenging it is without an image, have been experimenting with different combinations of textures and modifiers but so far have not found anything satisfactory. And this is just for a single frame for use as a picture, I have no idea what is involved in making sand particles for an animation, though I wonder if that might be easier albeit require more render time?
I just get icospheres and do almost 1 million particles, but the computer is always on the verge of crashing
I also know volumetric materials can make a really convincing dirt. (Not sure about sand though.) Did it in a test by ramping up density and mixing various noise in which is scaled to give fine detail. Downside to that? Yes, it increases the render time by quite a bit. Looked cool though. Just giving a mention as it’s still yet another approach to consider.
Those are great ideas, I will experiment next chance I get and see which way works best for my project. I will post when I have an update. Thanks!
Spent the better part of a month working on modelling and fur, now I get back to this and find I forgot how to make a particle system out of a mesh object. I had learned from a tutorial how to make a few grass blades and turn them into a lawn, but that tutorial is now gone. I see in that link from RickyBlender, and the Crystal Turtle project in this forum, what I want to make, but I cannot remember how or find a tutorial or even a thread with the info. Can someone remind me, please?