Creating a beetle-like chitin material with procedural textures

In this recipe, we will create a material similar to iridescent chitin (found in some kinds of beetles), as shown in the following screenshot:

Creating a beetle-like chitin material with procedural textures

The beetle chitin-like material as it appears in the final rendering

Getting ready

Start Blender and open the 9931OS_08_start.blend file, where there is an already set scene with an unwrapped Suzanne primitive object leaning on a Plane, an Emitter mesh-light, and a Camera.

Go to the World window and enable the Ambient Occlusion option with the Factor value as 0.10.

How to do it...

Let's start immediately with the material creation using the following steps:

  1. Click on the New button in the Node Editor window's toolbar or in the Material window under the main Properties panel to the right, and rename the new material as chitin_beetle.
  2. Now, in the Material window, switch the Diffuse BSDF shader with a Mix Shader node and label it as Mix Shader2. In the first Shader slot, select a new Mix Shader node; in the second Mix Shader node, select a Glossy BSDF shader node. Label the new Mix Shader node as Mix Shader1, and the Glossy BSDF one as Glossy BSDF_2.
  3. Go to the Mix Shader1 node, and in the first Shader slot, select a Diffuse BSDF shader, and in the second one, select a new Glossy BSDF shader node; label this node as Glossy BSDF_1 and set its Roughness value to 0.200 and Distribution to Beckmann, and change the Color values for R to 1.000, G to 0.000, and B to 0.562.
  4. Set the Glossy BSDF_2 node's Roughness value to 0.100 and Distribution to Beckmann, and change its Color values for R to 0.800, G to 0.574, and B to 0.233.
  5. Add a Layer Weight node (press Shift + A and navigate to Input | Layer Weight), label it as Layer Weight1, and connect its Facing output to the Fac input socket of the Mix Shader2 node. Leave the Blend value at 0.500.
  6. Add a second Layer Weight node (press Shift + A and navigate to Input | Layer Weight), label it as Layer Weight2, and connect its Facing output to the Fac input socket of the Mix Shader1 node. Leave the Blend value at 0.800, as shown in the following screenshot:
    How to do it...

    The shader part of the material

  7. Add a Texture Coordinate node (press Shift + A and navigate to Input | Texture Coordinate) and a Mapping node (press Shift + A and navigate to Vector | Mapping). Connect the UV output of the Texture Coordinate node to the Vector input of the Mapping node.
  8. Add a Voronoi Texture node (press Shift + A and navigate to Texture | Voronoi Texture) and a Noise Texture node (press Shift + A and navigate to Texture | Noise Texture); connect the Mapping output to their Vector input sockets. Set the Scale values of both the texture nodes to 300.000.
  9. Add a Bump node (press Shift + A and navigate to Vector | Bump) and connect the Color output of the Voronoi Texture node to the Height input socket of the Bump node; connect the Normal output of this node to the Normal input sockets of Diffuse BSDF and of both the Glossy BSDF shader nodes. Set the Bump node's Strength value to 0.500.
  10. Add a ColorRamp node (press Shift + A and navigate to Converter | ColorRamp) and paste it between the Voronoi Texture node and the Bump node. Set Interpolation to Ease and move the white color stop to the 0.059 position.
  11. Add a Math node (press Shift + A and navigate to Converter | Math), set Operation to Multiply, and label it as Multiply1; connect the Fac output of the Noise Texture node to the first Value input socket of the Math node. Set the second Value to 0.075 and connect the Value output to the Displacement input socket of the Material Output node, as shown in the following screenshot:
    How to do it...

    The bump is both "per shader" and as "total" bump (as in the previous wasp material recipe)

  12. Add a new Layer Weight node (press Shift + A and navigate to Input | Layer Weight), two Math nodes (press Shift + A and navigate to Converter | Math), and a Hue Saturation Value node (press Shift + A and navigate to Color | Hue/Saturation); label the new Layer Weight node as Layer Weight3.
  13. Connect the Facing output of the Layer Weight3 node to the first Value input socket of one of the Math nodes; set its Operation to Multiply and the second Value to 0.700, and label it as Multiply2.
  14. Connect the Multiply2 node's output to the first Value input socket of the second Math node, and the output of this node to the Hue input socket of the Hue Saturation Value node; connect the output of this node to the Color input socket of the Diffuse BSDF shader node.
  15. Change the Hue Saturation Value node's Color values for R to 0.103, G to 0.500, and B to 0.229, and just for this example, leave the other values as they are, as shown in the following screenshot:
    How to do it...

    Adding the final diffuse color

How it works...

  • The introductory steps of this shader work almost the same as for the chitin_wasp material, that is, the basic shader from step 1 to 6 and the chitin bump from step 7 to 11.
  • From step 12 to 15, we build the color component coming from the Hue Saturation Value node, and thanks to the combination of the Layer Weight3 and Math nodes, this appears mainly in the mesh faces perpendicular to the point of view, sliding in the other spectrum colors on the facing-away mesh sides, basically behaving as a sort of Fresnel effect. The addition of the Hue Saturation Value node allows for further color tweaking.
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