Do you need an easy way to make a procedural dirt material for your project?
In this tutorial, I will show you how to make a procedural dirt material using the shader nodes in Blender for your project.
DIRT BASE
Make sure you have the Node Wrangler add-on activated by going to Edit > Preferences and under the Add-ons panel, search for Node Wrangler and activate it
Under the Shading Workspace, I make a new Material and rename it
I use SHIFT + A to add a Voronoi Texture
I connect the Distance output of the Voronoi Texture into the Base Color of the Principled Shader
I change the Feature of the Voronoi Texture to Distance to Edge
I select the Voronoi Texture and use CTRL + T to add a Mapping and Texture Coordinate node
I change the Texture Coordinate output from Generated to Object
I change the Scale of the Voronoi Texture [3]
I use SHIFT + A to add a Noise Texture node
I use CTRL + SHIFT + LMB to see the Noise Texture
I connect the Mapping node to the Vector input of the Noise Texture
I now increase the Scale and Detail of the Noise Texture [175, 15]
I select the Principled Shader and use CTRL + SHIFT + LMB to see the shader
I use SHIFT + A to add a Mix Color node in between the Voronoi Texture and Principled Shader
I connect the Factor of the Noise Texture to input B of the Mix Color node
I change the Blending Mode of the Mix Color node to Overlay
I use SHIFT + A to add a Color Ramp between the Mix Color and Principled Shader
I move the White Color Stop to reduce the amount of noise
I select all the nodes (except the Principled Shader and Material Output)
I use CTRL + J to join them
I right-click on the Frame and rename it
DIRT COLOR
I use SHIFT + A to add a second Color Ramp and place it between the first Color Ramp and the Principled Shader
I change the Black Color Stop to a dark brown color [#3A251C]
I change the White Color Stop to a midtone brown color [#A4764A]
I use CTRL + LMB to add a third Color Stop and change the color to a lighter brown [#BE8655]
I can now move the Color Stops to adjust the colors
DIRT DETAIL
I use SHIFT + A to add a second Mix Color node between the two Color Ramps
I change the Blending Mode to Add
I use SHIFT + A to add a second Noise Texture node
I connect the Mapping node to the Vector input of the second Noise Texture node
I connect the second Noise Texture node to input B of the Mix Color node
I change the Scale and Detail of the second Noise Texture node [7.5, 15]
I use SHIFT + A to add a Bump node
I connect the first Color Ramp to the Height of the Bump node
I connect the Bump node to the Normal input of the Principled Shader
I change the Strength of the Bump node
I select these four nodes
I use CTRL + J to join them
I right-click on the Frame and rename it
WATER PUDDLES
I use SHIFT + A to add a Noise Texture and Voronoi Texture
I connect the Factor of the Noise Texture to the Vector of the Voronoi Texture
I select the Voronoi Texture and use CTRL + SHIFT + LMB to view the node
I decrease the Scale of the Voronoi Texture [1]
I increase the Detail of the Noise Texture [15]
I use SHIFT + A to add a Color Ramp between the Voronoi Texture and the Material Viewer
I move the Black Color stop to the right – this is the area where water puddles will appear
I select the Principled Shader and use CTRL + SHIFT + LMB to view the node
I connect the third Color Ramp to the Roughness input of the Principled Shader
I use SHIFT + A to add a third Mix Color node between the first Color Ramp and the Bump node
I change the Blending Mode to Overlay
I connect the third Color Ramp to input B of the third Mix Color node
I select these three nodes and use CTRL + J to join them
I right-click on the Frame and rename it
