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Idea #342: Support Image file layers in materials (ie. xcf files)

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Written by Storrboy the 5 May 11 at 10:32. Category: Texturing & Materials. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Rationale

Support the use of files like Gimps .xcf and the ability for them to have layers. This would allow 1 file to contain all the different parts of a materials properties. For instance, the main layer could be the colour, 2nd layer be used for spec map, 3rd for normal map etc. This would eliminate the need for maintaining multiple image files and allow keeping all realted material elements together.

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netbuz10101 wrote on the 5 May 11 at 15:23

this is just absolutely critical. Most textures that are created from photos or photo references are created using programs that use layers. Most of the time you start to create a bump layer by desaturating your texture and playing with contrast. Keeping these textures in the same file saves you a lot of effort managing all the different textures you may use on a single material. One of the major hangups with the material/texture system.

Storrboy wrote on the 7 May 11 at 06:15

Depending on how images are handled in Blender this could possibly become even more useful. I presume the Image Editor would have to be modified to support selecting layers as well (for use during UV mapping). How much further is it to support saving to these image formats? Would this mean that renders having to be done in multiple passes could be written to different layers and then just combined to get the final render, instead of having 4 times as many images for a given sequence? Could the node system read these layers as separate inputs and perform their magic on them before combining? How do we get someone with the expertise on this to think about it? I wish I knew how to do it, it would be a huge time saver.

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