Isolate Channel 1.0: Unpacks channel-packed textures (April 22, 2021)

[mccreery]

Extracts a single color channel from a texture to grayscale or another channel.

Effects > Texture > Isolate Channel...

IsolateChannel.dll

 

Many game engines use channel packing to reduce GPU load and increase performance. Each of the red, green, blue and alpha channels can store a full grayscale texture, for example roughness, metallic and ambient occlusion maps. This plugin provides a way to pack and unpack texture maps.

 

Unpacking packed textures: You can isolate one channel at a time to either grayscale or another channel. Grayscale is easiest for making changes, but single channels are more useful for repacking. By duplicating the layer you can unpack each of the four channels on a layer each.

 

Repacking unpacked textures: If you have separate layers for each map, you can use Isolate Channel to choose the channel you want each map to be stored in (for grayscale maps, or to rearrange). Then you can use additive blending to pack the masks. Alpha is a special case since there is no alpha mask blending mode. You can use BoltBait's Paste Alpha plugin from his plugin pack to pack into the alpha channel.

 

You can also use this plugin for a silhouette or stencil effect. Select Alpha for both input and output channels. If invert is unchecked, the result will be a silhoette. If invert is checked, it will be a stencil or negative of the original shape.

 

Download the complete plugin pack

Or:

 

Download 1.0 DLL Download 1.0 Installer

View source code on GitHub

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by mccreery
Fix repacking paragraph