On the very bottom are controls for repeat (useful for decals) and the color space. For diffuse maps, sRGB should be used, Non-Color for all effect and mask textures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This node can be compared to the Mix Shader node from Blender, but cascades them internally for simpler handling. The idea is to give you an experience like layers in 2D application work. At the bottom is the base layer and you are able to add as many layers as you want on top of each other, using masks to define the parts visible from each one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using too many layers will increase render time!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nUsage is straight forward. If just the base layer is available, it is passed through to the output. For every added layer, a mix shader node is used to combine the result from the previous step with this layer using the mask below this layer. White areas define where the upper layer is visible, while black areas are where the result from the lower stages is show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The controls next to each layer should be self explaining:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pen: This is a toggle. If enabled, the text \u201cShader Layer X\u201d is hidden and a text input is visible, here you can enter a new for the layer.<\/li> Up\/Down Arrows: Move the layer up and down. Only the base layer can\u2019t be moved. When moving the layer, the corresponding layer mask is moved as well.<\/li> Plus: Add a new layer just above the current.<\/li> x: Remove the layer and it\u2019s mask.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAdvanced Layer Manager<\/h3>\n\n\n\n The advanced layer manager was introduced in v1.2. It is very similar to the basic Layer Manager, so most of the information belongs to it too. In comparison to it, the ALM mixes materials instead of shaders, which is required for baking (as well introduced in v1.2).<\/p>\n\n\n\nNote the little toggle at the right side of the mix factor. When enabled, mix options are shown (like in the right side of this image). Every layer mask has it’s own settings. Here you can adjust the settings for each material channel individually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three buttons in each line are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arrow down: Use channel info from lower layer, ignore all from the upper one.<\/li> Arrow up: The opposite, data from the upper layer is used.<\/li> Tube: Information from both layers are mixed, weighted by the layer mask. In this case, you can choose how to mix both channels in the drop down control right of the tube.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\nThe normal channel has no mix control, both are just mixed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mix Normal<\/h3>\n\n\n\n There is Mix Color<\/strong> for colors and Math<\/strong> for scalar values, this node can be used to mix normal maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBakery node<\/h3>\n\n\n\n This node is used to bake materials onto an object.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTop level row<\/h4>\n\n\n\n After adding the node, it is very small. Select the object to bake with the leftmost control. The Select <\/strong>button next to it, select the object in the scene. You don’t have to click on it before baking, but this can be helpful. The Reload <\/strong>button right of select must be used, if you’ve added or renamed materials belonging to the object.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUV Mapping<\/h4>\n\n\n\n After selecting an object, UV mapping controls are visible. Select the map to use for baking here. This map is than always used for baking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you don’t have one or need a different one, you can create one with the controls below it. Functionality is very limited here, either create one using Smart UV Unwrap or LightMap unwrap. The created map is automatically named UVBake<\/strong>. It is advised to verify this map and to space optimise it. Always recheck if you’ve selected this one, which is not done automatically! Select it after creation in the control above (if not automatically done).<\/p>\n\n\n\nExport settings<\/h4>\n\n\n\n Following are the export options. They are very identical to the one on the Mask Generator<\/strong> node. The top row allows to set the output folder, either the .blend folder, the \/textures subfolder to it or any other folder. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBelow you have to enter the name of the textures to bake to. This name is used as well for the baked material when doing Internal Reimport<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nInternal Reimport<\/h4>\n\n\n\n If this is selected, the baked maps were used to create some kind of shadow material, a material that looks identical to yours, but just consists of a group of texture files, the baked images and not on the complex node tree used for your constructed material. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You have to select which material channels you would like to bake here, just use those you really need for this specific material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After baking, a material with these maps is automatically generated (or updated if it already exists). You can use this material on a copy of your object. Be aware to use the UV map that was used for baking on this copy, otherwise the textures have a wrong mapping. This material works in Eevee, Cycles <\/strong>and AMD ProRender<\/strong> without any change. For use in LuxCoreRender<\/strong>, just click “Use Cycles Settings” in the material panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIf you now do some modifications on you original material, just hit ‘Bake<\/strong>‘, so your copy is automatically updated. <\/p>\n\n\n\nExport<\/h4>\n\n\n\n This is used to create maps for external applications, like Unity <\/strong>or Unreal<\/strong>. Close to the Export button is a dropdown control. Here you can select a preset to use. The button next to it loads this preset. You can see the change in to export matrix below. I’ve tried to find usable settings for Unity Specular\/Metallic as well as Unreal. If you thinks there are better settings for those, please report it to me. If you like to see other presets, report it to me too, so I can add them in future releases.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn any case, you can fully configure which material channel it exported to which file in which channel, as well as enable or disable channels individually. The files are named [Texture Name][postfix].[ext], while the Texture Name is taken from the export settings section and postfix is used from the individual channels. The file extension is chosen from the export format automatically. When using the same postfix for different channels, please have attention to not use the same texture + channel twice! Diffuse and Normal are hard mapped to RGB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you enable Occlusion, settings for the used Ambient Occlusion node were shown just below it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bake<\/h4>\n\n\n\n The first row here is the output texture resolution, choose one large enough to not loose to much detail, but don’t always use the largest one. I’ve tested 16k and I got really large files. One single 16k file requires 1 GB of memory when used in a render, so if you have a PBR set which contains three texture files of this size, this single object would need 3 GB of VRAM alone \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bake Samples<\/strong>: Samples number to use for bake. All channels are baked in ‘EMIT’ mode, so low numbers work very well here, which is good for fast bakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBake Margin<\/strong>: You should now what this is, prevent a value of 0 here, otherwise you may get artefacts at UV island edges.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUse GPU<\/strong>: All baking is done using Cycles. If you use GPU for rendering, you should use it for baking as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOutput format<\/strong>: PNG, TIFF or OpenEXR. Prefer PNG. It has good compression and is widely used. OpenEXR can be used to create maps with a higher range, which may sometimes be useful. For instance if you bake emission and the strength is larger than 1.0. But this creates large files!<\/p>\n\n\n\nHQ<\/strong>: If set, both PNG and TIFF files were created with 16bpp instead of 8bpp, for better detail. In case of OpenEXR full instead of half precision is used.<\/p>\n\n\n\nGeneral Info<\/h4>\n\n\n\n You can add as much instances of this node to you node tree. So every time you adjust a specific material, you can re-bake the textures by just clicking on the Bake <\/strong>button.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNodes from Blenders shader editor<\/h3>\n\n\n\n The nodes in this section are equivalent counterparts to nodes from Blenders shader editor (and use these nodes internally). So here are just links to the original descriptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HSV<\/h4>\n\n\n\n Hue Saturation Value Node<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n