Material ID mask issues

Boyordo

I am having some issues related to using my baked RGB maps as Material ID maps in the Multi Material Bland node. This issue also regard the color to mask nodes.

I bake my RGB base map in 3Ds Max and I dilate the edges in photoshop using the xnormal dilation filter.

The issue lies within using anti aliasing in the multi material node. If fuzziness is to low, black borders appear, and if the fuzziness is to high, well then materials starts to blend globally. This is due to me having to use around 10 different material inputs with some objects. So I can not just use Red Green Blue... I have to mix in more colors.
I have found that I can get around this most of the times by instead of using fuzziness I use the padding value to mix things better. Although this is not a 100% sollution, so any better way is always welcome.

The second issues is then: Using the color to mask nodes.
Here I have to use my imported RGB mask image again and I get the black edges, but this time there is no padding option to save things. Nor can I find a fuzzines option.
Is there anyway to get the version that is used as final (original rgb mask with padding) in the multimaterial node? Can I output THAT rgb id image and then use that one to plug into the colr to mask nodes?

I have read that many just do a uv to SVG bake on the mesh and then build the rest of the SVG by hand... I dont get how to do that, as well, if I have 60 screws and stitches, handpainting all that in can be quite the task...

gruntpunch

Hey Boyordo. If I understand correctly, when you are referring to Fuziness you mean the color ID Maps are Blurred or have an Anti-Aliasing above 1x when you bake them out? As far as Color ID maps go, you want 0 anti-aliasing so that the materials you are trying to mask don't blend in together. Make sure to not use Anti-Aliasing for this map and leave it off. As far as the edges of your mask go with the color ID map, make sure to check how it looks from a distance rather than up close. Depending on your texture density of certain assets in UV space, some assets will appear more smooth than others with texture resolution.

Boyordo

Thanks for the reply Gruntpunch. Well what I mean when I refer to fuziness is he the fuziness slider in the Multi Material Blend node. It lets the color ID range out further than the picked color.

When it comes to having no anti aliasing in the ID maps, well it does neutralize the black border issues BUT many times things just look better when the material transitions are smooth, thus actually mixed at the borders, then when the transitions are hard.
This can be somewhat controlled in the way I stated in the OP. DDO/Quixel suite utilise anti-aliased ID maps if I don't remember wrong? As have I done by hand in photoshop.
The big question is still: Is there any way to get the color ID map used INSIDE the multi material blend mode, after padding has been added with the slider in there, as a output to then later be used for generating masks through the color to mask node? This would be really great. That or any way to get anti-aliased ID maps to work ok withing the SDesigner...

OccultMonk

You could use Adobe Illustrators trace feature with 16 colors and save without anti aliasing.
Update: I tried this, and it does not work as well as I hoped. AI trace feature isn't accurate enough so the edges don't match exactly. In theory it worked though :-)