multiple textures in material how do I add alpha to just one?

Hi there,

Ive made a material - it’s made up of 3 layered textures. However i’d like the alpha I have just to work on the moss texture so you can see the stone in patches instead of it just being transparent. How do I go about linking this up to get the desired effect?

Thanks

Hello ergoproxy,

Have you see the Landscape Layer Blend node. This accomplishes the blending of your layers and allows you to use Blend Types for each layer. One of the blend types is an alpha blend.

This will allow you to add an alpha to one layer while keeping the others as weighted.

Sorry to be a pain but would you be able to do a really quick example. As when I use the layerblend node my end result is a dark grey material? And I’m still not sure where to link up the alpha?

In your material you can add a Landscape Layer node.

Then you can set up your layers so that you have 3 textures assigned to the LayerBlend

I Assigned 4 for variety.

I then applied this material to the landscape itself. The material will be black by default. What I did was assign a preview weight of 1 to the grass layer. This way the grass receives priority in the rendering. I then navigated to the paint section of the Landscape Mode. Here you will see little plus signs next to each layer. These are to assign layer info to each layer. Click the plus sign for each layer and assign them a weight layer except for the layer you want to be the alpha layer. This one you choose the non weight layer.

Lastly, you will paint on your landscape.

Note: By default the landscape has not any paint information until you paint on it. This will sometimes cause errors because the landscape is trying to guess where you painted. It’s a good practice to paint your entire landscape manually with a base layer.

Note: Every time you paint a new layer the landscape will need to calculate the new layer information. This only happens the first time you paint. Afterward the landscape will not recompile the grid area where the new information has been added.

Note: After painting with the alpha layer you will not be able to paint back over that with your weighted layers.

This is great thank you I needed something like this for my landscape! But what effect I was trying to achieve was to plug the moss alpha into the moss texture and not have the alpha effect the entire material. Currently the moss alpha is effecting everything.

'd like to know how to make an alpha only effect one texture?

Ok, so you would like to have an alpha mask applied to one texture as part of a layered material? This is opposed to applying it to all textures of the material. The method I linked Is specific to landscapes and will allow you to paint layers individually but cannot be applied to a static meshes.

I have found a tutorial where they guide you through the material set up for snow. Then the snow is applied to a material instance which can be adjusted in real time. This way you can influence the amount drawn on your mesh.

Let me know if this is along the lines of what you were trying to do.

Thanks ! That’s just what I was after :slight_smile:

Hi. You can try to use layered materials Layered Materials | Unreal Engine Documentation