I’m trying to Lerp between a Colour and Shadow Colour set using a mask based on the lighting to achieve the below result. However, it seems when trying to apply it, it completely ignores the A node and is only returning the Colour (Image 2 is just the colour node section, but also what the final lerp returns). What is it about the mask that is not combining them as intended?
Desired outcome:
Node Setup
Colour, and also final material currently
Shadow
Mask
Hello there @EdHarrington!
I tried to reproduce your setup in my end, assuming it’s cell shading, post processing effect (if possible, could you please share screens from the rest of your setup?). Here are a few points I would need to know from your end:
Confirm the material domain is set to Post Process
As a temporal test, pick your Light Colour’s plug from Lerp B, and plug it directly into your Emissive Color, and check your viewport for the result (has everything turned colorful, black, or something else entirely?)
Repeat the same test for Mask box at Lerp Alpha, and Shadow Tint at Lerp A. The idea is to isolate which of the components is not working as intended
Beyond the isolation, please test by removing the Normalize node from the Light Colour chain
If that doesn’t work, instead, remove the “1 > Floor > Multiply” branch, then test again
I’ve identified that the Normalize node is the culprit. Removing it gives me close to the result I’m looking for, but Point Lights don’t have the colour It appears to have an effect with everything combining after, but I’m not sure why.
It’s confused me that the Lerp mask doesn’t seem to be working as intended. Allowing one channel to show through white areas and another through black. There seems to be something going on that is meaning the Normalize node is having an effect past its output in a way.
Hello again!
Thanks for the follow up, good to know that clearing the Normalize node test helped. Know we need to address what’s happening with the point lights.
Before, the Normalize was flattening your Light Colour to pure black, so there was no way to know if the mask was filtering properly or not. Now, it sounds like the mask is checking for brightness, instead of color.
Without altering your setup, I think you can play around with the Specular Mask Threshold value, and see if that corrects the result. If that doesn’t work, maybe adding a node to compare the current levels in the scene, with the one resulting from the mask?
