Hi Folks,
I’ve uploaded a new “Basic Splatmap” macro to the library, suitable for people using Unreal Engine, Unity or other realtime engines that need texture weight maps.
The Basic Coverage macro from which it is derived has proven a very convenient way to create simple textures, and this macro extends the concept to produce Splatmaps as well.
An example file showing how to use is included here for your convenience!
Here’s the link to the library entry:
Hi Stephen,
Thank for this and i will give it a try since this week i will be starting the splatmap extraction.
Regards Peter
I have a question regarding this.
If I do not connect anything to the alpha input of the bitmap output, everything looks fine. But I’d want a fourth channel of information.
When I connect stuff into the alpha channel, the image output is transparent. There is no alpha channel, but rather a stripped RGB image.
This makes this macro a bit unusable in some cases. Or am I just thinking about this the wrong way?
In a game engine such as Unreal or Unity, you’d normally want RGB to drive where textures appear, and the Alpha channel could also drive a fourth texture, but is that possible ?
R G B and A channels will keep their information
even if your alpha makes image look super transparent, data in R G B is preserved - it is only a matter of “how you are previewing and displaying alpha channel”
so you can have all 4 splatmap channels and not worry at all 
Alpha layer is for carrying transparency information. So naturally if you put a mask in there, it automatically makes the pixels invisible. Information is still there. Inside engine, check if in your texture settings, alpha is not checked pre-multiplied. If it is set to pre-multiplied, the pixels are deleted permanently, instead of being invisible. World machine exports alpha as a separate layer.