I’m able to mask normal textures using a Lerp and a mask texture (as shown in the screenshot) and then blending the result with another texture but I don’t know how to do that with a Normal map. Since there’s no Alpha Channel in the Normal node, I’m uncertain as to how to build that inside my material.
I would really appreciate if someone could post an example showcasing how to do so.
Masking a texture
http://puu.sh/c7jhW/1df4d671d1.png
Thanks!
You blend normals maps just like this as well, you dont need a special alpha channel. Plug your mask texture to the alpha input of a Lerp and your normal maps to A and B.
Check out the rock materials in the starter content to se examples of it.
I think he wasn’t asking how to blend normal maps, he was asking how to MASK them which is slightly different. IE he only wants the normal map to show up in the masked area. The confusion is that he thought he was masking a texture using the LERP node which is incorrect.
Linear Interpolate isn’t typically for masking, it’s for blending. You plug one texture into A, another into B and then the alpha controls the blend strength. In the OP’s example he’s using it incorrectly.
To mask a texture, you simply multiply the texture by an alpha where white will show the texture and black will hide it. Here’s an example setup where I also blend in another texture to fill in the masked area:
Though you could just use a LERP if you want to blend two textures together based on an alpha mask, it’s not quite the same thing. For example, you might want to simply remove the texture information without blending in another texture in which case a Multiply is easier.
I’m not exactly sure how to mask a normal but when I figure it out I’ll post here.
So from what I can figure the easiest way to do this is using a lerp but if you want the masked area to have no normal, then you need to create a “Blank” normal texture. Inside your image editor (Photoshop for example) create a texture of any resolution (I chose 64x64) and fill it with RGB 128,128,255:
Then use a lerp node with your alpha texture to mask out the normal information in the specified area.
