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The curvature shader is an easy way to add detail and realism to your shaders. In this short tutorial, we will use the curvature shader to create a wear and tear shading effect. It will be used to represent where the edges of a hard surface are scraped on the model of a mech. Notice in the image above how the edges of the paint appear worn off, exposing the metal underneath.

You can use either a layer shader or a mix_shader in this tutorial.

The shader used in this scene can be downloaded here.

A video tutorial can also be found here.

Mix Shader

A mix_shader is used to layer two different standard_surface shaders. We will use one standard_surface shader for the top green paint layer (green) and another standard_surface shader to represent the exposed metallic surface underneath.

  • Create a mix_shader and assign it to the object.
  • Create a standard_surface shader and rename it 'Green Paint'.
  • Create another standard_surface shader and rename it 'Metal'. 
  • Connect the Green Paint to Layer1 of the mix_shader and the Metal material to Layer2 of the mix_shader.

Curvature Shader

  • Connect a noise shader to the radius of a curvature shader (bias and multiply will work too). Experiment with different noise settings to get the look that you want. Don't forget that you can connect a color_correct shader to the noise shader to further refine the appearance of the 'worn' look.
  • Connect the curvature shader to the transparency attribute of the layered shader. This will control the blending between the two standard_surface shaders.

Without Noise shader
With Noise shader
Bias
  • In the example images below, the bias parameter of the curvature shader has been increased and exaggerated to better demonstrate the effect.
Bias: 0
Bias: 0.5 (default)
Bias: 1
Samples
  •  Increasing the number of curvature.samples reduces noise and gives a better quality result.
Curvature samples: 3
Curvature samples: 6



cell_noise → curvature → mix_weight

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