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Channel specific filter | Substance 3D Painter

Last updated on Jul 13, 2023

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Channel specific filter

An effect can be specific to a particular channel. In that case, if you want to affect a specific channel, you need to create an input AND an output which identifies this channel. As a general rule, the input / output structure should always respect a 1:1 rule. If you want to input a specific channel, you have to output the same channel.

Example of a filter affecting the basecolor channel only :

Note:

It is not possible to combine generic setup (input/output nodes) and specific channels (basecolor/basecolor).

Alpha component management

Channels stored as RGBA support alpha (basecolor for instance). For these channel, the alpha Input/Output can be stored directly in the Substance color output. However, the Substance engine does not support Alpha for grayscale images: it has to be managed using a secondary map. To get the alpha component of a specific channel in a substance graph, create a grayscale input named 'channelname_Alpha', example: basecolor_Alpha, roughness_Alpha and so on.
To output this alpha component, create an output node with the same name convention.

Note:

The specific "_Alpha" output per channel doesn't work with regular materials. To hide a channel with a mask, a specific output must be created with the following naming convention :

Identifier : channels_Alpha
Usage : channels_Alpha

List of input/output usages and identifiers

Note:

It is possible to use either the usage or the identifier in an input node (the usage has the priority).

Channel name	Usage	Identifier / Identifier Alpha
Ambient Occlusion	ambientOcclusion	ambientOcclusion / ambientOcclusion_Alpha
Anisotropy Angle	anisotropyangle	anisotropyAngle / anisotropyAngle_Alpha
Anisotropy Level	anisotropylevel	anisotropyLevel / anisotropyLevel_Alpha
Base Color	basecolor	baseColor / baseColor_Alpha
Blending Mask	blendingmask	blendingmask / blendingmask_Alpha
Diffuse	diffuse	diffuse / diffuse_Alpha
Displacement	displacement	displacement / displacement_Alpha
Emissive	emissive	emissive / emissive_Alpha
Glossiness	glossiness	glossiness / glossiness_Alpha
Height	height	height / height_Alpha
IOR	ior	ior / ior_Alpha
Metallic	metallic	metallic / metallic_Alpha
Normal	normal	normal / normal_Alpha
Opacity	opacity	opacity / opacity_Alpha
Reflection	reflection	reflection / reflection_Alpha
Roughness	roughness	roughness / roughness_Alpha
Scattering	scattering	scattering / scattering_Alpha
Specular	specular	specular / specular_Alpha
Specular Level	specularlevel	specularLevel / specularLevel_Alpha
Transmissive	transmissive	transmissive / transmissive_Alpha
User 0	user0	user0 / user0_Alpha
User 1	user1	user1 / user1_Alpha
User 2	user2	user2 / user2_Alpha
User 3	user3	user3 / user3_Alpha
User 4	user4	user4 / user4_Alpha
User 5	user5	user5 / user5_Alpha
User 6	user6	user6 / user6_Alpha
User 7	user7	user7 / user7_Alpha