Anyone know a good recipe to create a realistic red velvet shader in Cycles, when using HDR environment lights?  I've played around with the default BSDF Velvet, but it doesn't seem to hold up with this kind of lighting in a realistic way.  I'd expect a velvet material to be more complex, and almost "touchable", with some SSS too.  Anyone know a good node recipe for a great red velvet?

How about this one?

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?278285-Yet-Another-Thread-about-Cycles-Materials&p=2464444&viewfull=1#post2464444

 like the way they did bump (have to try that) I use 2 velvet nodes slightly different shades mixed by a Fresnel node (IOR just under 1 works but fiddle) would like to get a Musgrave in there too but not had chance to play lately

That does look interesting going to have to save that link for future project thanks for sharing the link Robyn

I think this to be much better of Velvet shader than the default Cycles.  Scroll down to this page and see it.

https://davidzerba.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/cycles-shaders/

OSL velvet script and nodes have more control, with changing of two colors instead of single color, and roughness of course too.

Another nice share thanks zandar

Some great information here, guys!  Thanks!  I'm putting together something using a combination of the two examples in this thread.  I was really impressed by a velvet shader I saw from a render done in POSER of all applications!  It was a great looking velvet material, and I'd been trying to get that same effect in Blender without success.  Seeing these examples at least shows that it can be done in Cycles!  phew.  Would have scared me if there was a shader in Poser we couldn't do in Blender! hehe!

Poser has very good materials, only very few understand them well.

 materials are VERY app specific !! a basic image may work well in any app but a procedural ;-) oh my gosh that will be different

if you want to bounce around different apps  learn to bake all maps !! it will help but wont be perfick

but never forget different render engines make different assumptions  

have fun mate (something else to think about, the peeps who make the BEST mats have 50 + trys at any mat ) so try again don't give up

Thanks everyone.  I posted my results the other day in my gallery, but didnt get much response.  I guess this kind of stuff is mundane to most users, but it's a big deal to me to finally figure out the material tree in Cycles, and create my own materials, like velvet, from scratch!

I used it on a stock model i found in freestuff, which I thought would be perfect for the shader.  I modeled the other ornaments, but the bells and bow object aren't my model.  They are all my shaders.  I tried posting a small version to the freestuff forum, but was horrified at how the forums automatically reduced my image quality to crap, so I wont post images to the forums again.  It totally screws up the quality.

Please check out the results in my gallery here:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2583726

I'd be thrilled to hear what you guys think.  All Cycles for rendering, and I don't know how to do any postwork beyond some color adjustments, so basically all a straight render.

 saw this as I got home to pack to go away ;-) [busy time of year]

expected to see lots of replies {guess your frustrated at none }  would like to see your nodes trees and like to know what "look" you was after??, if you was after the cheap plastic thing you NAILED it !!! easy to see the foliage is polypropylene and the bells are polyacetate would suspect the velvet to be tape with a flock material sprayed on hope that don't upset you ;-) .......do like the render nice use of DoF but the B/G is odd ?. looks like baubles hung in an empty room

that's just my take ask elsewhere for more helpful advice

ps merry chrimbo and it would make a nice card for this time of year ;-) 

Thanks, Heddheld.  I'm really disappointed I didn't get more feedback on the image.  Even if it wasn't all positive, I expected to see some more comments, considering how many Blender users there are on this website.  Oh well.  I'm really proud of the image.  I was never one for coming up with great materials, especially in Cycles.  I found it difficult to even follow some tutorials for materials actually.  The node structure there was all mine.  Yes, I was definitely going after a plastic, artificial look for the pine needles, so I'm glad you noticed that!  The background is a HDRI of a room.  It's not supposed to be "empty", which is why I used a HDR environment, to give it the illusion of a real environment, but the ornaments are intentionally hanging by themselves.  I'm just not very good at scene construction yet.  I can model, but materials and composition are still my weakness.  While I didn't model the main object in that scene, I did model the other ornaments, and like I said, the materials and lighting are all me.

Thanks for giving me some feedback!  I really need it.