Extra depth channel

[kirk23]

Would love  if Affinity have a mode with one more channel dedicated to depth /height.      Like  some painting  apps, art rage,  corel painter   etc.   Which use it mostly for impasto  simulation and canvas  textures.    

Could be a whole new version of Zbrush  2,5d mode  but  rather non-destructive   with true layer support  .  

All it needs is just depth /height  channel in brush dabs , an extra alpha in tiff images maybe  and a few specific blending modes.

Depth combine blending  where   if pixels of layer 2 are higher then layer 1  they are visible and other way around masked .   Basically (layer1 max layer2 )- layer1 and some levels based threshold on top of it    or perhaps just classic  and simple if else   binary  masking  way.

And another blending mode where same if else pixel selection blurs layer 1 and add depth  of layer 2 on top of it.

Would work nicely for  all sort of bokeh  imitation and  for doing some  special depth based displacement  and filters.   Isometric phone games  mockups ,  materials  for CG  and so on and on  without super complicated   layer stack where  you couldn't recollect and figure out anything just next morning .

 

 

 

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[NotMyFault]

Older experiments

 

 

[kirk23]

9 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Older experiments

Yeah.  but practical implementation  is a key.    Could be just extra channel without any crazy tricks   . Simple  and easy.    Corel painter have a perfect floating point  depth channel for example. They had it  since ancient times  but never let you do anything meaningful with it   except impasto.  

  The soft needs so little modification really to be  a perfect 2,5d  Zbrush replacement.