Corona Layered Material - 3ds Max

Corona Layered Material - 3ds Max

 

The Corona Layered Material offers stacking of multiple materials on top of each other in order to mix them. You can also use a mask to control which parts of each material will appear in the render. For example, rusted spots on a metal surface, exposed bricks below a cracked concrete surface, or a glossy pattern on a matte painted surface. 

 

Creating Corona Layered Material

Here is how to create a Corona Layered Material:

In the material editor, right-click and go to Materials>Corona>CoronaLayeredMtl

 

Corona Layered Material Parameters

 

Base mtl (Base Material): This slot defines the base material of the surface. Other layers are stacked on top of it: 

 

Layer Mtl (Layer Material): You can use these slots to place new layers on top of the base layer. The layer numbering corresponds to the layer order (layer 1 is below layer 2, and so on): 

 

Layer Mask (Layer Mask): You can use these slots to define the coverage of each layer. Black means no coverage, white means full coverage, any values in-between result in a blend with the underlying layer: 

 

Displacement (Mode): You can use this option to choose how displacement is calculated when it is used in multiple layers. This option is only available in Corona 8 and newer: 

 

 

Examples of using different displacement blending modes: 

1. Blend all layers: This is the default displacement blending mode. It works by stacking the base layer displacement and the displacement maps of all other layers on top of each other without any special blending mode. The displacement of each individual layer is mixed based on that layer’s opacity.


Material Setup:

 

2. Only from the base:  In this mode, only the displacement from the base material is applied to the object.


Material Setup:

 

3. Add all layers: It works by stacking the base layer displacement and the displacement maps of all other layers on top of each other and using the "Add" blending mode to mix them together. The displacement of each individual layer is mixed based on that layer's opacity.


Material Setup:

 

NOTE: Base material is required for the layered material to work properly. If the “Base mtl” slot is empty, a default material will be created with the wire (object) color set as its diffuse color.

 

Using Corona Layered Material:

1. First, create a Corona Layered Material and assign it to an object. Then create a Corona Physical Material and connect it to the "Base MTL" slot. This will be the base material of our object.
   
   
2. Create another Corona Physical Material and assign it to any Layer Mtl slot of the Corona Layered Material. This will be a new material layer that will render above the base material layer.
   
   
3. Now create a mask (it can be a bitmap texture as well as a procedural map) and plug it into the Mask slot next to your current material layer.
   
   
4. By repeating steps 2 and 3 we can create multiple layers of different materials on top of the Base material.

Note: you are not limited to the Corona Physical Material. You can use the Corona Layered Material with other material types too, however we recommend using the Corona Physical Material in most cases as it provides physically-accurate results.

 

 

Examples of using the Corona Layered Material:

Example 1: Here we used the Corona Layered Material to create the print on the pillow:

 

Render Result:

 

Material Setup:

We created:

• a Blue fabric material and used it as the Base Material of the Corona Layered Material
• a White fabric material and used it in the Layer 1 material slot
• a bitmap with a smiley shape as the Layer 1 Mask

 

 

Example 2: In this example, we used Corona Layered Material to create a rough iron material with a rusted coat on top of it.

 

Render Result:

 

Material Setup:

We created:

• a generic rough iron material and used it as the Base Mtl slot of the Corona Layered Material
• rusted metal material and used it in the Layer 1 material slot
• a CoronaAO map using a grunge bitmap to define the spread of the occlusion effect which was then used in the Layer 1 Mask slot

 

 

Example 3: In this example, we used Corona Layered Material to create a concrete material with damaged areas:

 

Render Result:

 

Material Setup:

We created:

• a concrete material for the base material
• multiple broken concrete materials to be applied over the base material
• bitmaps to mask the material layers. 

We used the Blend all layers mode to blend the different displacement maps from the base material and the layered materials.

Notes:

1. Stacking a lot of complex materials in a Corona Layered Material and blending them can affect rendering performance. Usually, it makes more sense to create a single material than a very complex network of Layered Materials if both approaches can be used to get similar end results. 
   
   
2. You can also use the Corona Decal objects in Corona 8 to achieve similar displacement effects as with the Corona Layered Material. Corona Decal can turn out to be very robust and flexible instead of dealing with a complex Corona Layered Material.
   To learn more, see: Corona Decal (3ds Max | C4D).