Layers

Help Center Articles
#1

Originally published at: https://help.world-machine.com/topic/layers/

This device was introduced in ‘Artist Point’ The Layers device provides a convenient way to combine together many different inputs, using an interface similar to Photoshop. The Layers device supports heightfields, bitmaps, and full materials. You can use a variety of compositing operations, including powerful heightblend-based options. It also produces output masks showing how much…

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#2

Does the Layer Combiner work like a Photoshop layer stack, where it starts at the bottom of the stack and works it way up, or does it start at the top of the stack and work its way down?

#3

Thanks for the comment!

Top to bottom. That’s an important clarification - I’ll update the article.

#4

I was suspecting that but wanted to confirm. This is a powerful tool that will be replacing a lot of cascading combiners for me. :stuck_out_tongue:

A couple of usability suggestions for the next time you work on this component:

  1. If you have a layer combiner that has enough inputs to require scrolling down, the layer properties window often bounces back up to the top when you change a blend method. It’s not easily seen and it’s very easy to wind up editing layer 5 instead of layer 11 and wondering why it’s not reacting. If the window could be set to not reset scroll position that would relieve that.

  2. It would be very useful if the Layer Name for each input included the set name for the object providing the input. So if my Advanced Perlin Generator was named “Mountain 4”, it would look like Layer 1 “Mountain 4” on the layer properties screen.

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