Pebble Beach by Genie

Nice idea, and some presets look very good. In the default one, however, sand looks a bit unnatural.

good one, genie

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Genie wrote: Dilla, I´m not exactly sure, but do you mean something like make the top sand layer lighter than the sand beneath the rocks?

Take a look at the greyscale values of the sand. They are essentially uniform across the entire bump map, meaning all the sand is on one and the same 'height' level.

However, at any place where the sand has washed on top of the pebbles, we should see the correct height information for pebbles plus a very slight height alteration due to the tiny sand particles that cover them. Try blending a medium to high roughness noise over the pebbles heightmap (masked of course), at very small blend values (say 0,05) with a blend mode of screen, overlay or lighten...

Yup, that's what I meant, but take care that the pebbles remain smooth in those areas that have no sand over them by masking the blend. Also, the height difference between a pebble with sand on top vs. the same pebble without sand on top should be very very minimal, just a slight change in roughness on the normal map, basically.

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Genie wrote: The one on the left is the one submitted, on the right I made a few changes.

The one on the right is much better! Add that to Dilla's suggestion and you got yourself a real pebble beach!

This is really nice. I like how it appears to have shadows and a kind-of wind swept look. I will use this one.

You have a lot on very nice filters. I only noticed them today.

Wow very realistic Genie!