Gaia Textures Channel Remapping

[OrdemDevOps]

Hi,

I just wanted to give variations in existing Gaia textures only with its tones, and then I stumbled upon Channel Remapping feature. There we have RGB, alpha, specular metallic, and smoothness option. I played around a little bit. However, it does not give drastic changes, which means that I am not doing it correctly. I tried to find the documentation or some existing references in this forum, but didn't get lucky.

 

So, the problem is, it seems it does something but not that much. Imagine I am using the default sand texture from Gaia. By controlling the channel remapping, I expect that I can even make it 100% black. Once I can do that, then I will be able to change the colours. Could you give me some advice? Thanks!

[Peter]

Hi @OrdemDevOps, please note that the channel remapping at its core is a feature of the terrain layers in the unity engine, not a Gaia feature. You can find more information about it in the unity manual in the terrain layers section: 

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-TerrainLayer.html

Gaia allows you to store configuration values for terrain layers in the spawner settings, this is described in section 3.1.1 here:

https://canopy.procedural-worlds.com/library/tools/gaia-pro-2021/written-articles/populating_your_world/1-spawner-introduction-r54/

The values stored in the spawner settings are then used to create the terrain layers on the terrain. If you adjust the channel remap settings and it has no effect, I could think of three things:

If you adjust the settings in the spawner, you need to click the "Refresh Prototype on terrain" button for the settings to update in the terrain layer.

The channel remap settings adjust the effect of the mask map texture which will only be used by the terrain shaders in URP or HDRP, in built-in rendering the channel remap has no effect.

 

[OrdemDevOps]

@Peter, thanks for the advice. My understanding has quite improved. I was previously using URP, but I created a new project which is not in URP. That was one issue. Also, now I use "Refresh Terrain Prototype" once I change something in the spawner, which immediately started working as intended. Finally, the documentation such as

https://canopy.procedural-worlds.com/library/tools/gaia-pro-2021/written-articles/populating_your_world/1-spawner-introduction-r54/

 

is somewhat de-facto basic guideline before one gets started in my opinion, which is not less important than tutorial videos that does not offer the details. I wonder why it's so difficult to find those documentations. Nevertheless, one problem resolved, my understanding improved, too.

 

Thanks again!

Edited August 2, 2022 by OrdemDevOps