Maya - Assign color to alpha space

Slugs

Hello!

Oddly I couldn't find any topics about this anywhere.

Say I needed to create hundreds of labels which are all identical in look with few minor color differences between.

Rather than having to create all the labels in photoshop and independently assign the texture to each object in maya and catalogue them. I could create a template and assign the interchangeable space to the alpha channel.

In maya, how would I assign a color to that space delegated to the alpha channel? I understand that alpha is used primarily for transparency but can it also be used similarly to a mask in these circumstances?

 How would I do this? Cheers

throttlekitty

Hi @Slugs, you can't assign color information into Alpha on a material in that way, but there are others if I understand you right. The layeredTexture node is a simple blending kit that's great for this sort of thing. It's a simple setup that could be expanded or automated since you have so many to make, the color and mask file nodes can be reused in other shading networks for each color you need to do.

Slugs

Thanks @throttlekitty ! But I must ask, how did you get multiple inputs on the layered texture?

Edit: Figured it out. Thanks! You've really saved my butt today.