An idea that would make life easier... Images

cookedpeanut

So I'm working on a project at the moment which involves multiple files, generally groups of say 6 of each PBR textures. So 6 G/S/N/AO maps a piece. Now it just occurred to me and I'm not sure whether it's possible but I'll be damned if someone doesn't pick up on this.

So we all know you can have a .mtl file with different groups based on material IDs, so why not have an image file that can have different channels or layers named the same as their corresponding material IDs so that when applied you simply need to input a single file for multiple objects? You might be thinking usability is a problem, however in any case you'd open the image, swap out the material/texture and re-save. Voila, no mess.

Not sure if someone has thought of this, I'd imagine so, but hell I'd love something like that right now!

Voidspawn

Most likely not quite what you're looking for, but http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/ChannelPacking is quite standard these days.

Lt_Commander

Sounds like you're describing a color ID Map that is usually used by texture generators like dDo or Substance Designer.

In dDo specifically, ween you mask off your texture to match a predefined color, it'll use that as a base for its generator, so like FF0000 is interpreted as 24k Gold for example.

I've even made simple shader in UE4 that uses the RGBA channels as masks for 4-channel Diff/M/R slider based solution. In theory, I'd be able to just swap out the masks and bitmaps and get the exact same values on different textures, but SD is a way more elegant solution then what I wrote up.

cookedpeanut

I don't quite mean material ID maps. Let me explain it differently. Say you have 6 different models which are exported into a single .obj with material IDs to distinguish the separate objects. Now say I had 6 gloss maps, 6 specular maps and 6 normal maps each of which need to be applied to their corresponding model in the file. Instead of applying each map one after another, what if an image file had layers for the same type of maps. These layers are linked via the names of the files in which case all you need to do is apply a single file to texture all 6 objects at once.

Like packing multiple images into a single file.

Eric Chadwick

Which game engine are you using?

Spiffy

You can do this already technically, of course there are limitations depending on what map you are using

But you can technically store 4 gloss maps in one image, Just filling the corresponding channel RGBA with each map you want.


But that changes when you use Normal maps or any other maps that require more than one channel per texture, as for auto applying to a model that would all be engine side, not really having anything to do with the file itself.