Shader nodes - blur color output

Support Materials and Textures
1

Hi,
I have a node setup that can blur an image texture just fine. Also I have another node setup that acts like a mask and I want to blur it. My problem is, that the mask has a color output and I don’t know how to blur it.
In this situation the blur works and is connected:

Screenshot_20200714_173202
Screenshot_20200714_1732021139×317 68.7 KB

How to connect the blur and the mask together?: (Worth to note that MixRGB isn’t the answer. )
Screenshot_20200714_173338
Screenshot_20200714_1733381088×573 74.8 KB

2

That is not “blurring” per se, but randomizing coordinates. If using UV, use 2D noise, and certainly not 16 detail - above 0 is likely overkill. While it gives the impression of blurring on channels like diffuse and roughness, it fails miserably on normal, bump, and displacement textures.

Therefore, you can’t apply it to the mask shown, you have to apply it to the coordinates driving the mask, on the left of what is shown.

3

Thanks for tips.
I’m not sure if this is what you meant, but it doesn’t work.

Screenshot_20200714_214341
Screenshot_20200714_2143411557×345 82 KB

I know I can make blur effect by making the Glass BSDF rough and add IOR, but this darkens the output and I just cant mask things with that, thats why I’m making the blur separately.

4

I bet CarlG didn’t expect the color you want to blur to come from a Shader to RGB node.

There is one fundamental issue with this setup:
You’re trying to ‘blur’ the shader, when what you wan’t to be blurred is the rendered result of the shader.
The shader itself though is uniform. Even if you managed to ‘blur’ the shader itself (Which I don’t think you can, because there is no texture space to blurr and that is all the blur group does), it wouldnt change the rendering. The object would still be uniformly shaded with that one shader.
It’s kinda like blurring an image that is just one color.

I hope this somewhat makes sense. I don’t think, I understand this well enough myself to really explain it… :upside_down_face:

That being said, I can’t think of a way to do this directly blurr the Shader to RGB output from within in the node tree that is not changing the settings of the shader itself (Roughness, IOR, normals…).
Can you explain in more detail why using rougher glass isn’t working for what you wanna do?

Though, if you only want to make a still image, you could bake the output of the Shader to RGB node to a texture and then blur that texture with your blur group to use as a mask.

1 Like
5

Correct, I didn’t expect that :smiley: I also didn’t know this is for Eevee - Shader2RGB only in Eevee.
I don’t use Eevee, but in case others can help, what is it you’re trying to achieve? If you want to blur the background for camera, you can use two environment textures and use Light Path/Camera to RGB mix between them, where one of them use regular coordinates and the other use “blurred” coordinates.