1
$\begingroup$

Link to my file in question

File info :File consists of a mesh shaped like a shield that is undergoing a softbody sim. Uses 4 individual materials.

My aim : I need to use Bump on the entire mesh to apply light surface imperfections through a Musgrave texture + Bump node

I saw various tutorials on Youtube involving bump mapping using a noise texture connected to a Bump node connected to a shader's/Principled BSDF's normal input.

Basically, these node setups contain a single shader, so there is a single noise + bump plugged into a shader's normal input.

However, in my file's material I downloaded off the Internet, there are various many shaders, connected to each other through Mix Shaders, etc

How do I use a bump node on the mesh if there are innumerable shaders in my setup, rather than 1? Image of my nnode setup in question, note that this is only one of the 3 materials I have on my mesh

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
2
  • $\begingroup$ Do you have a case against connecting it with displacement into the Displacement Socket of the Material Output? $\endgroup$
    – Leander
    Commented Jun 16, 2020 at 20:40
  • $\begingroup$ @Leander I tried but it didn't work. Person in tutorial plugged into normals $\endgroup$
    – Hash
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 11:27

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2
$\begingroup$

The shaders for which a normal input makes sense usually do have a normal input.

You can plug the output of a node into any number of node inputs.

Example :

enter image description here

Or you can simply use a displacement node and connect it into the displacement input of the "Material Output" node :

enter image description here

It's hard to get exactly the same result using these two methods. The benefit of the first one is that you can define different bump maps for each type of shader.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
10
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you so so much! If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean by "exact same result"? By that do you mean the displacement woul look better for my animation over bump? $\endgroup$
    – Hash
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 11:28
  • $\begingroup$ I meant that since you are using different nodes with different settings (Displacement vs Bump), it is hard to exactly replicate the look of one using the other. But I don't think there is a "better" method. The first one allows more tweaking because each shader may get its own bump map, and the second one is applied over the whole surface independently from the shaders. $\endgroup$
    – Gorgious
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 11:39
  • $\begingroup$ and both methods will look visually correct when the mesh deforms during softbody right? Also, why doesn't fresnel have any bump plugged into it? $\endgroup$
    – Hash
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 11:50
  • $\begingroup$ I don't know much about softbody simulations but I think there shouldn't be a problem if you don't use a too high value of bump. If you see some strange things happening when the mesh gets squashed, you may have to UV unwap your object and use the UV coordinates instead of the generated (used by default) $\endgroup$
    – Gorgious
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 11:56
  • $\begingroup$ wait, why uv coordinates? I'm not using uv textures or uv mapping $\endgroup$
    – Hash
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 11:59

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .