Blend_Overlay: bad behaviour

olivierth

I'm trying to use the alpha channel of my normal map to be tiled and overlayed on the diffuse but I'm getting a big problem. It feels like the blend_overlay can't use only the alpha, it can only use all channels.

Obscura

Try component mask. And I think a simple multiply would be good for this.

olivierth

Sweet! Thanks for the help! Overlay is better for this since multiply darkens it too much.

Vailias

Notice your blend Overlay node is requesting 2 vector 3's for input. You were giving it one vector 3 and a float for input.

If you want to use the overlay you'll need 2 append vector nodes. The first one should have the channel that you are overlaying in both input, the second append vector should have the first append vector node as one input, and the overlay channel for the second.
This will make a new vector 3 of nothing but the alpha channel you're using, so you essentially have a greyscale texture.
Plugging the final output from the second append vector node into the overlay node will give you what you are expecting.

olivierth

Thanks. That's an interesting solution and now I know what append does. The component mask solution is working and is simpler for a beginner like me.

Vailias

Glad its working.
Its also good to know how the component mask output handles output into a multi channel input. I wasn't sure of that.

Obscura

If the darkness is too much with multiply, then you can control it with power or something else. How the overlay looks now?

olivierth

Since I ended using a total of 3 detail maps to tile in overlay, I created a new texture with those 3 as channels so the normal map has no alpha now.

Here's the result. I used detail maps on the shirt, vest and pants. I still need to tweak those later.