Blender procedural hexagon pattern

I needed a texture for a hexagonal pattern that was fully procedural. In the past I wrote one in Open Shading Language but I wanted one that utilized the GPU and worked for Eevee as well. So I implemented a node group that uses basic nodes only. An example is shown below.

The node group is straight forward to use and has options to change the scale and the width of the line. An usage example is shown in this noodle:

Availability

It is available for download from my GitHub repository. To append the node group so that you can use it in your material, simply select File -> Append ..., browse to the .blend file you downloaded and locate the Hex Nodegroup. After that you can use it in the Shader editor with Node -> Group -> Hex

Implementation details

The Hex nodegroup simply overlays three 60° rotated copies of a pattern of dashed stripes

Each dash is the side of a hexagon. The stripes are created with another node group shown below (click to enlarge)

It contains two almost identical frames: one to produce a set of vertical dashes and another one to create a simlar set but offset in the x and y direction. The dashes are generated each time from a wave texture in the x direction that is combined with a greater than node to produce narrow vertical lines. From this we subtract broader horizontal lines generated in the same fashion to create the gaps between the dashes.

Hexagon shader texture for Blender Cycles on GPU and CPU

First stab at adding a hexagon pattern to Cycles that can be used on the GPU as well as the CPU and that is not based on OSL.

The image was created with the following noodle:

As you can see, the hexagon node provide both a color and two float outputs. The first is the distance squared to the centre of the hexagon, the second one the distance squared to the centre of the nearest neighbour. Having both output allows for the easy creation of an edge, as shown in the noodle.

Code

The code follows the implementation of the OSL version closely and might be sub-optimal. My first steps will be to document my steps in creating a completely new node (because no less than 15(!) files needed to be changed or added to implement a single node. After that I want to optimize the code a bit and wait for feedback on my previous patch before submitting this one.

A hexagon shader in OSL, second edition

A while ago I made a simple OSL shader for hexagonal tilings. Prompted by some questions on BlenderArtists I decided to create a more versatile version that retained the color options but added the distance to the closest edge. That feature may help in creating crips edge patterns because the previously availble distance to the closest center creates rounded shapes that might be suitable for bee hives but not for hard edged stuff like floor tiles etc.

The noodle used to create the image is shown below (click to enlarge):

The color code has stayed the same except for the calculation of the distance to the edge. This might be a bit inefficient, but at least it's easy to read.
The additions are shown below, the full code is available on GitHub.

    // distance to nearest edge
    
    float x = mod(Coordinates[0]/3,1.0);
    float y = mod(Coordinates[1]/3,A2);
   
    #define N 18
    vector hc[N] = {
        vector(  0, -A2/3     ,0),
        vector(  0,     0     ,0),
        vector(  0,  A2/3     ,0),
        vector(  0,2*A2/3     ,0),
        vector(  0,  A2       ,0),
        vector(  0,4*A2/3     ,0),

        vector(0.5, -A2/3+A2/6,0),
        vector(0.5,     0+A2/6,0),
        vector(0.5,  A2/3+A2/6,0),
        vector(0.5,2*A2/3+A2/6,0),
        vector(0.5,  A2  +A2/6,0),
        vector(0.5,4*A2/3+A2/6,0),

        vector(1.0, -A2/3     ,0),
        vector(1.0,     0     ,0),
        vector(1.0,  A2/3     ,0),
        vector(1.0,2*A2/3     ,0),
        vector(1.0,  A2       ,0),
        vector(1.0,4*A2/3     ,0)
    };
    
    float d[N], t;
    
    for(int i=0; i < N; i++){
        float dx = x - hc[i][0];
        float dy = y - hc[i][1];
        d[i] = hypot(dx, dy); 
    }
    
    for(int j= N-1; j >= 0; j--){
        for(int i= 0; i < j; i++){
            if(d[i] > d[i+1]){ 
                SWAP(t, d[i], d[i+1]);
            }
        }
    }
    
    Center  = d[0];
    Edge    = d[1] - d[0];
    InEdge  = Edge < Width;

The approach we have taken is very simple: the hc enumerates all nearby hexagon centers. We then calculate all the distances to these points and sort them shortest to longest (yes with a bubble sort: with 18 elements it might just be faster to do it with a more efficient sorting algorithm at the cost of much more complex code so I don't bother).
The Edge is not realy the distance to the closest edge but the difference between the closest center and the next closest. Near the edge these values are more and more the same so Edge will approach zero. For convience we provide a comparison with some threshold also.

If you would like to know more about programming OSL you might be interested in my book "Open Shading Language for Blender". More on the availability of this book and a sample can be found on this page.