few special procedural filters for texture art

[kirk23]

1. Height to normal map

2. normal map to curvature ( combined emboss from multi light direction or Sobel) + levels

3.Height to curvature ( by hipass, frequency separation) + levels

4.  Layer1 normal map (vector/direction) + layer2 black and white( intensity/distance)   >>>>  Layer 3 warp /displacement

5. Same as 4. but  with gradually fading steps  with  lighter  or darker  blending .

6. Layr1(grayscale height) + lighter  blending of layer2 height  subtracted by  one of two  +  levels  >>>>> a mask of one of two things combined  by their depth/height  

7.  in general an ability to make a few typical image processing operations with inputs from a number of hidden  layers ,  saved  into macros maybe  and  then made into adjustable live filter  ( even if it would be not so live and require some waiting and pushing an  "update" button.  

Perhaps  2-6  made into special procedural masks  with sliders  getting inputs form hidden  layers codded by certain tag colors,    like height/depth is grey, normal is blue etc.    and showing that a mask takes those inputs by  colored dots at a mask thumbnail  side.         Would be easy to read solution .       

My god  it's so much of a pain to figure it out in my own Substance Designer macaroni monsters so I hope APhoto could do it simple and elegant. 

 

I know there are special soft for textures and 2d compositing where it's all possible   but gosh how inconvenient all that pro soft is  and  it could be a very nice advantage  over Photoshop  for so  wonderful and user friendly APhoto.   I bet  texture art is not that tiny niche to ignore after all.  

ps.   And please make tgas with alpha export.     I personally perfectly fine with 2d screen only and need just those things.