I like the “Quick Texture” macro’s effect and I’m wondering if there’s an easy way to output the individual channels from that as a splat map or individual masks for use in UE4?
When I use the “Basic Splatmap” macro, it doesn’t seem to capture the detail that the Quick Texture macro has.
It would be nice to avoid having to manually set-up all of the selection masks–the “Quick Texture” macro seems like it has everything I need. If only I could find a way to quickly output the masks that it’s creating behind the scenes…
So, there is no way to automatically do this. However, I can tell you that the Quick Texture macro is fairly simple inside and very amenable to becoming a splatmap instead.
Here’s how I’d do it:
Open up the macro by selecting “enter device”.
The macro functions by combining together Select Wetness and Select Slope and using that to drive a colorizer of your choice. It then mixes in the provided erosion mask atop that.
So, to make the output a splatmap instead, I’d take the mask driving the colorizer and use it to produce 3 bands of material, roughly corresponding to the bottom, middle, and top of the color range. The “Height Splitter” device is perfect for this.
The 4th splatmap channel will then be the same erosion mask used in the device already.
Feed all of those channels to a Texture Weightmap device and, you’re done! Just pipe out the rgba bitmap and put it to a bitmap output device (or use individual weight channels if needed)
Hi Stephen, could you confirm that I have the settings correct for the Quick Texture Out properties? I’m not seeing the splat map appear for some reason…
Set the datatype of the 3rd output to “Any”; WM won’t transmit data out of the macro that doesn’t match the datatype you specify.
Also, by default WM will always show the first output of a device when you click on it. Since your splatmap is the 3rd output, you won’t see it unless you click on the 3rd port of the macro.
What form do you want your weightmaps in? A Packed bitmap, an ID bitmap, or individual mask files? My example used a packed RGBA splatmap output from the texture weightmap device. I can’t remember exactly at the moment, but I believe this option was introduced in Artist Point. You can create the same thing by outputting individual channels from the texture weightmap device and then combining them using a Channel Combiner to create the rgb bitmap if that’s the form you’re looking for.
The RGB+A datatype was added in Artist Point. For 4020, you’ll need to pipe the 4th channel into the alpha channel of the bitmap output device seperately.
