How to Make Diamonds in Blender | Shader Tutorial

For the undoubtedly just 1 or 2 people who also follow my other channel, I made a little diamond animation a while back. I teased the idea of making a tutorial on how I made the diamond material. Since then, I've tweaked it a little bit, so here's my tutorial on how to make diamonds in Blender!
Original video:
• Diamonds are Forever
Patreon, anyone?
patreon.com/ltfilm
0:00 Intro
0:30 Setting up the scene
5:21 Starting on the material
5:55 Not the glass BSDF...
6:59 But why?
9:00 One way of adding dispersion
10:45 Continuous color dispersion
13:57 Important note
14:19 Back to dispersion
14:40 Separating the IOR's
18:56 Non-linear IOR
21:29 Conclusion

[@ltfilm]

So, after a bit of experimenting between recording and publishing, I found an easy way to boost the "brilliance" of diamond is to boost the max glossy bounces in the light paths tab of the render properties. Like I mentioned in the video, the shape of diamond cuts is designed to maximize the internal reflections of the diamond. So, boosting the max glossy bounces boosts the number of reflections and therefore the brilliance of the diamond.

[@75GOLD]

I watched the whole video I wonder how many people watched the whole video anyways I love the video I love how you explain things

[@ltfilm]

Thanks Jason! Glad you watched it all!

[@philvanza9952]

After working trough almost every Diamond Blender Tutorial, I assume this one here is the most accurate, due to the dynamic IOR dispersion over the rainbow spectrum. Good tip boosting up the glossy in rendering panel.

[@ltfilm]

Thanks!

[@IDGs_space]

whoa, didn't expect such an excellent tutorial from such a small channel, thank you for this !!

[@ltfilm]

Small channel?! My channel??? Just kidding, thank you for the compliment!!

[@paulnguyen3069]

Great tutorial. Best diamond tutorial I’ve came across.

[@ltfilm]

Wow, thank you!

[@morimelson]

Good tutorial, many thanks

[@ltfilm]

Thank you!

[@unicopious]

Great tutorial! I'm wondering what the best way is to convert this to an aiStandardSurface shader in Maya, though. Any help would be appreciated!

[@tamikabatalova]

hi, amazing tutorial and explanation! thank you so much for sharing! for some reason when I got to the part where you added Map range and value & math nodes, it didn't give the same effect which you got with purple and yellow bands showing through. The only way I was able to get a similar effect was either by plugging the Fresnel Factor node into Mix RGB or by removing the Mix RGB node, which then results in the colour range that you display in the video. but I can't understand why a Mix colour node would disrupt it, or why you would add it in the first place.

[@ltfilm]

Thanks for watching it! I'm afraid I don't quite understand the setup you're describing. I don't believe I connected the Map range and value/math nodes to the mix RGB. They should connect to the IOR input of the refraction BSDF. The mix RGB is there to correct the darkening that happens when connecting the color ramp to the color input of the refraction BSDF. I can't remember if I had a reason why 1.55 was the value for the mix RGB or if I just figured it out by trial and error. If you have any more questions or just want me to elaborate on anything further, let me know!

[@gergolaky3624]

This is really interesting, how did you figure out how to build the shader tree, that will produce a diamond? Is there a book or something or there is like a way to understand the structure of materials and turn that understanding into shader trees?

[@ltfilm]

For diamonds specifically, I actually started by looking it up myself! The method I learned at first used three separate branches to mimic the dispersion with the primary colors. But, to get to the more accurate final result, I had to do research on dispersion and all the stuff that ended up making it into the video. The closest I've found to a single resource on getting good materials is the physically based rendering encyclopedia at docs.google.com/document/d/1Fb9_KgCo0noxROKN4iT8ntTbx913e-t4Wc2nMRWPzNk/edit
It's more useful for metals and simpler materials, but it has some good info on how real-world properties can transfer into the shader editor. And that's really the best way to get better materials. Just think about what properties your material would have if you were to look at it in real life. Then research ways you can translate that into the shader editor.

[@gergolaky3624]

@@ltfilm Thank you I really appriciate it.

[@ripkobexnip3719]

How do u export it with the shiny textures ? I added a image texture but when I adjust the metallic and roughness it didn’t add the metallic and stuff only the image texture

[@ltfilm]

That sounds very odd. I’m sorry, I can’t really be of much help without seeing your node tree setup. You could try posting a picture on a forum and trying to get an answer there.

[@stevenludtke1666]

How did you get the grey background after opening the Shading tab it´s like green blurry gras landscape. how I get it grey like in your video?

[@ltfilm]

Hey Steven! So, it sounds like you're in the material preview mode for viewport shading rather than rendered view. The first time you go into the shading tab in a project, it defaults to material preview mode. Take a look at the four little circles in the top of the window. I imagine the second from the right is the one that is selected. Choose the one all the way on the right and that'll put it in rendered view! Hope that helps!

[@stevenludtke1666]

@@ltfilm thanks a lot 😁

[@YoYoBobbyJoe]

My diamond still seems to be very green, which would be aqua if I were using the same color ramp as you. Is that because of the size of the diamond?

[@YoYoBobbyJoe]

Never mind. It seems like I'm required to use a full range color ramp; otherwise it freaks out!

[@ltfilm]

Glad you figured it out! It can be a bit finicky sometimes!