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This is something that has been irking me for a while, as I've been working on a car project. I'm trying to create a paint (in cycles) similar to the the material in this image:

enter image description here

The problem is, whenever I try to make it, it always comes out looking to diffused or too sharp.

Here's my node setup:

enter image description here

And here's the render:

enter image description here

David
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CharlesL
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  • Show us a setup of your nodes and any results you have rendered, also realistic is too subjective and open to interpretation, can you specify a set style.. like chrome or matte. – iKlsR May 23 '13 at 17:21
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    To truly evaluate the material, use a pure white environment like your reference. – bntser May 24 '13 at 02:28
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    Haven't you made it a bit too glossy? – A Wild RolandiXor Has Appeared May 24 '13 at 04:25
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    I'd like to see an answer with good explanations as to why each node is used, and how their values contribute to the resulting effect. And why changing certain control values change the result as they do. – jesterKing May 24 '13 at 06:53
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    Instead of mixing a bunch of glossy shaders, try mixing with a matte shader (diffuse or velvet). You can also play with using a fresnel as the mix factor. You'll probably just have to play around with the shader for a while to get something that looks nice. – Azmisov Oct 18 '14 at 20:28
  • What is the brand of the car on first image? – Wildfire Aug 06 '16 at 21:38

2 Answers2

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I'm not completely sure what you are going after, but for an image like the top one lighting will be very important.

I don't have car model to demonstrate, but hopefully this gives you some ideas:

enter image description here

Material nodes:

enter image description here

If you want that paint fleck look that a lot of car paints have, try using a voronoi texture to modify the normals of a glossy shader underneath the main surface:

enter image description here

enter image description here

gandalf3
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8

A matte car paint can be created with only five nodes:

  • Principled BSDF
  • Velvet BSDF or another Principled BSDF
  • Layer Weight
  • Mix Shader
  • Material Output

Material using Velvet BSDF for sheen

Matte car paint black using Velvet BSDF Matte car paint white using Velvet BSDF The BMW demo scene was create by Mike Pan

Shader

The Principled BSDF should have a Roughness between 0.3 and 0.5 depending on how matte the paint should be. I left all other parameters at their default, but the Specular value could be adjusted as well.

The Velvet BSDF in combination with the Layer Weight and Mix Shader nodes are the key to create the typical sheen of the matte car paint. The Facing output of the Layer Weight is used to blend between the Principled BSDF and Velvet BSDF.

Material using Principled BSDF for sheen

Matte car paint black using Principled BSDF

Matte car paint black using Principled BSDF The BMW demo scene was create by Mike Pan

Shader

In this variation the Velvet BSDF has been replaced by a Principled BSDF. The Specular parameter can be adjusted to control the amount of specular reflection in the areas with the sheen effect.

Specular set to zero Specular set to zero for Principled BSDF with sheen

Robert Gützkow
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    Why not to use Principled's sheen instead of Velvet? Is there something special about it? – Serge L Jan 05 '20 at 11:49
  • @SergeL The Velvet BSDF looks different than the Principled BSDF with Sheen. For this use case it seemed to be closer to what I wanted to achieve. You could replace the Velvet BSDF with the Principled BSDF, but it would require a bit more parameter tweaking. One benefit of using another Principled BSDF would be that the material works in Eeevee as well (which doesn't have the Velvet BSDF). – Robert Gützkow Jan 05 '20 at 11:57
  • I've updated the answer. Personally I think the version with the Velvet BSDF looks better. – Robert Gützkow Jan 05 '20 at 13:42
  • @brockmann No problem, still +150 points for me :) – Robert Gützkow Jan 08 '20 at 20:21