Creating an expanded polystyrene material

In this recipe, we will create the classic white expanded polystyrene material:

Creating an expanded polystyrene material

Getting ready

Start Blender and load the file 1301OS_04_start.blend.

How to do it...

Now we are going to create the material:

  1. Select Suzanne (or whatever mesh you are going to use) and click on New in the Material window under the Properties panel or in the Node Editor header. Rename the material Plastic_expanded_polystyrene.
  2. Switch the Diffuse shader with a Mix Shader node. In the first Shader slot select a Diffuse BSDF shader, in the second Shader slot select a Glossy BSDF.
  3. Set the Diffuse shader Color and the Glossy shader Color to pure white; set the Roughness value of the Glossy shader to 0.600. Add a Fresnel node (press Shift + A and then go to Input | Fresnel) and connect its output to the Fac input socket of the Mix Shader node; set the IOR value to 1.550.
  4. Add a Voronoi Texture node (press Shift + A and go to Texture | Voronoi Texture), then add a Texture Coordinate node (press Shift + A and go to Input | Texture Coordinate) and a Mapping node (press Shift + A and go to Vector | Mapping).
  5. Connect the Object output of the Texture Coordinate node to the Vector input of the Mapping node, then the output of this one to the Vector input of the Voronoi Texture node.
  6. Set the Voronoi Texture node Scale to 25.000. Add an RGB to BW node (press Shift + A and go to Convertor | RGB to BW) and a Math node (Shift + A and go to Convertor | Math); connect the Voronoi Texture node's Color output to the RGB to BW node and this one to the first Value input of the Math node.
  7. Set the Math node operation to Multiply and the second Value to -0.150; connect its Value output to the Displacement input socket of the Material Output node.
    How to do it...

How it works...

You have probably noticed that this recipe is simply a variation of the generic plastic shader. We changed the Color to white and, instead of the Noise Texture node, we used a Voronoi Texture node with a different Scale to add the typical polystyrene pattern; then, by increasing the Roughness value of the Glossy shader, we made the specularity more diffused.

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