Mask 2d image with alpha over base mesh's texture? 2.81

[Cody38]

Hi there. My goal is to use 2d images with opacity for facial features, but I want a base texture over the areas the mouth/eyes will be on. Essentially texturing a whole character without eyes/mouth, then project the image on top of those specific areas with images (like PNGs.)

https://youtu.be/5NlvgMYZgaY?t=410 I’ve been using this video, but found it quite limiting to just have a diffuse BSDF under the facial features, so it wouldn’t allow more realistic textures that don’t use just one flat color value.
I’m also using his technique of swapping the facial features by having those areas on separate UV maps, so maybe that complicates things, but if those areas could at least have the same texture as the surrounding areas and just mask on the facial features with images then that would be satisfactory.

[zanzio]

@Cody38

I’ve been using this video, but found it quite limiting to just have a diffuse BSDF under the facial features, so it wouldn’t allow more realistic textures that don’t use just one flat color value.

I don’t get it. What makes you think that you have to use a flat color when you use his technique? Just plug an image texture into the color input of the first diffuse shader (the one set to yellow in his video). You could even use a different uv map for the base texture from the one used with the UV warp modifier and face texture.

[zanzio]

Here try something like this:

cartoon mouth with complex skin.blend (1.0 MB)

[Cody38]

Thanks, this looks great, though I wonder if I can use a different material as the input as opposed to an image texture? I guess if I had even a complicated texture with additional maps other than color, I could plug it all in there.

[zanzio]

@Cody38

Thanks, this looks great, though I wonder if I can use a different material as the input as opposed to an image texture?

You can’t plug a shader (green output) into the color input (yellow input) of another shader. The shader represents a calculation that the render engine has to do when a ray hits the object.

You can mix multiple shaders together using the mix shader node to produce a more complex result, but for most things it’s easier to just adjust the settings for the principled shader. The principled shader is a complex shader that can be used to produce the results you need for most types of materials.

You can use cycle’s nodes to composite textures together the same way photoshop does it (including a lot of the blending options, masks, and opacity).

I explained how this works in this post:

Simple Texture layer with alpha values doesnt work

Those aren’t “texture layers”, those are material slots. Each material can use multiple textures, so you’d only use more than one if your object has multiple materials. You can use nodes to composite multiple textures together in the same way photoshop does with layers: [mixRGB%20Node] When the node is set to mix mode, blending between the two textures works the same as opacity in photo editors. You can also switch this to modes like screen or multiply to get the same effects you can get fr…

I recommend reading that to get a better feel for how textures are composited in cycles.