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WearBlender

WearBlender is a set of Blender scenes, published under ETSim, for learning and teaching how artists usually fake wear: worn edges, scratches, rotated normal maps, painted marks and proximity effects. It sits beside the ÉTS master’s research on wear in texture space, where wear comes from simulated contact rather than hand-built masks.

Blender scenes
BlenderShader nodesGeometry nodes
  • Updated
View sourceREADMEMarkdown

1. Overview

The repository holds only .blend files, a README and an MIT licence. The README lists five themes. The node types stored in each file show how the scenes cover them:

  • Edge wear.blend: a worn-edge mask from Bevel and Geometry nodes, a color ramp and a roughness image texture on a plane.
  • Scratched.blend: procedural micro-scratches on a Suzanne mesh from Voronoi and Noise textures, color ramps and Bump nodes.
  • NormalRotation.blend: an image normal map whose vectors are turned with Vector Rotate and Vector Math nodes.
  • WeightPainting.blend: geometry-node trees that read a painted attribute with Named Attribute, and a material that mixes shaders through an Attribute node.
  • flowmap.blend: vector nodes that split and recombine coordinates to push a texture along a flow image.
  • SurfaceCameraProjection.blend: a second camera, a CameraProjectionMaterial with an emission shader and a rigid-body world.

Three more scenes, Sliding_cube.blend, Wrapping project.blend and flowmap_vector field.blend, are larger files. Their names suggest a sliding-cube setup, a wrapping test and a vector-field flowmap variant. The README does not describe them separately.

2. Use cases

Blender example scenes for learning how to fake wear with shaders, geometry nodes and painting.

Use-case diagram for WearBlender: Study an edge-wear shader; Study procedural scratches; Rotate a normal map; Drive wear from painted data; Offset textures with a flowmap; Project a camera textureWearBlenderStudy an edge-wear shaderStudy procedural scratchesRotate a normal mapDrive wear from painted dataOffset textures with a flowmapProject a camera textureLearner or teacher«system»Blender 4.5
People on the left, external systems on the right; each oval is a use case backed by the files cited below.
Study an edge-wear shader
Learner or teacherBlender 4.5

Edge wear.blend builds a worn-edge mask in the shader editor from Bevel and Geometry nodes, a color ramp and a roughness image texture.

Study procedural scratches
Learner or teacherBlender 4.5

Scratched.blend combines Voronoi and Noise textures, color ramps and Bump nodes on a Suzanne mesh to draw micro-scratches.

Rotate a normal map
Learner or teacherBlender 4.5

NormalRotation.blend rotates the vectors of an image-based normal map with Vector Rotate and Vector Math nodes.

Drive wear from painted data
Learner or teacherBlender 4.5

WeightPainting.blend reads a painted attribute through Named Attribute geometry nodes and an Attribute shader node to mix materials.

Offset textures with a flowmap
Learner or teacherBlender 4.5

flowmap.blend separates and recombines vector components to push texture coordinates along a flow image.

Project a camera texture
Learner or teacherBlender 4.5

SurfaceCameraProjection.blend has a second camera, a CameraProjectionMaterial with an emission shader and a rigid-body world.

2.1. Scenario: Take apart the edge-wear scene

  1. Clone the repository and open Edge wear.blend in Blender 4.5 LTS.
  2. Select the plane and open the Shader Editor to follow the Bevel and Geometry nodes into the color ramp.
  3. Change the ramp stops and watch the worn edges grow or shrink in the viewport.
  4. Open Scratched.blend and compare how Voronoi and Noise textures feed the Bump node.
  5. Copy the node setup into your own material as a starting point.

Files readREADME.mdLICENSEEdge wear.blendScratched.blendNormalRotation.blendWeightPainting.blendflowmap.blendSurfaceCameraProjection.blend

3. Getting started

Nothing needs to be built. Clone the repository and open any file in Blender; the README says the scenes were tested in Blender 4.5 LTS.

git clone https://github.com/ETSim/WearBlender
blender "WearBlender/Edge wear.blend"

Then, as the README suggests, look at the Shader Editor or Geometry Nodes editor, toggle visibility or play the animation, and reuse the node setups in your own materials.

4. Repository guide

  • Edge wear.blend covers curvature and bevel-based edge wear.
  • Scratched.blend covers procedural scratches with bump.
  • NormalRotation.blend covers rotating normal maps in a shader.
  • WeightPainting.blend covers wear driven by painted attributes and geometry nodes.
  • flowmap.blend and flowmap_vector field.blend cover texture flow maps.
  • SurfaceCameraProjection.blend covers projecting a camera texture onto a surface.
  • Sliding_cube.blend and Wrapping project.blend are additional scenes named after a sliding cube and a wrapping project.
  • README.md lists the themes and how to use the files.

5. Features

  • Edge wear from curvature, bevel and color ramps.
  • Procedural scratches from Voronoi and noise textures.
  • Rotated normal maps for dynamic surface detail.
  • Wear driven by painted attributes and geometry nodes.
  • Flow-map texture offsets.
  • Camera texture projection onto a surface.

6. Limits

  • The repository contains scenes only: no scripts, add-on or rendered previews.
  • The README describes five themes but does not map them to file names, and it mentions a dynamic-paint scene without naming the file.
  • The scenes reproduce artist-driven wear looks. They are not physical wear models.
  • The files were saved by Blender 4.4 and 4.5, so older Blender versions may not open them.

7. Sources

8. CI/CD pipeline

No CI/CD pipeline in the repository. The code is built and run by hand, as described above.

Generated from the source at commit 422ce0f.

9. Deployment diagram

Mermaid Deployment diagram
flowchart LR
  repo[("GitHub repository")]
  local["Local machine"]
  repo -->|"clone and run"| local

The repository has no Dockerfile, Compose file or hosting configuration, so the code runs on the machine that clones it.

10. External dependencies

The repository declares no external packages: it has no manifest such as pyproject.toml, requirements.txt, package.json or pom.xml.

11. Glossary

Repository

The versioned source files, configuration, and history of a project.

README

The repository’s entry document, usually covering its purpose and initial setup.

Dependency

A library, tool, or service that another component needs to build or run.

HTTP

A request-and-response protocol used by browsers and web services. A method, path, headers, and optional body describe a request.

CLI

A text interface in which commands and arguments select operations. Exit codes let scripts detect success or failure.

GPU

A processor designed for parallel workloads, including graphics rendering and many numerical operations.

Shader

A program executed at a stage of a graphics or compute pipeline, for example to transform vertices or calculate pixel colors.

Mesh

A surface represented by vertices and connected elements, often triangles. Its geometry is distinct from its material or texture.

12. References

  1. ETSim. (2026, November 5). [Web page] github.com.
  2. ETSim. (2026, November 5). WearBlender. [Software repository] github.com.
  3. ETSim. (2026, November 5). README. [Source file or documentation] github.com.
  4. ETSim. (2026, November 5). Edge wear.blend. [Source file or documentation] github.com.
  5. ETSim. (2026, November 5). Scratched.blend. [Source file or documentation] github.com.
  6. ETSim. (2026, November 5). WeightPainting.blend. [Source file or documentation] github.com.

Sources without a publication date show the date they were last checked, November 5, 2026. File links retain the inspected revision where available.