I'm having a bit of trouble creating a ground texture for the map I'm working on, in the map it's a forest so there is leaves all over the ground but dirt paths were players could follow. I have the tileable dirt and leaf textures I'm working with and have put the alpha (for where the dirt should appear) in the dirt bitmap file.

What I cannot figure out how to do is make it so the dirt appears where it should, I looked at a shader tutorial that was no help what so ever.

Wow I know that probably isn't making any sense but If anyone catches my drift and can help me figure out how to do this it would be much appreciated.

I dunno haha

Right now I'm mixing the primary and secondary detail maps, but it's multiplying the two. What I want is just to have the dirt to appear where the alpha tells it too but still be able to be tiled in that area. And underneath the dirt I want to have the leaf tileable texture.

I think that's what I'm looking for could you show a brighter image?

So would I put the leaves bitmap as the base texture and then put the dirt in the primary with an alpha?

It looks like the dirt is blending with the grass in the grasses 'area'
If that isn't happening sorry, it's still a dark image.

What I want is just to have the alpha say;
white = dirt
black = leaves

I want the alpha to work as a mask, I don't want them to blend unless there is gray in the alpha. Are you familiar with composite materials in max?

BTW I realize this thread may be giving you a headache, so sorry but I really appreciate you helping me out.
Edited by YakZSmelk on Jan 18, 2010 at 08:42 PM

Ok I got it working, I was having a hard time understand when not sitting at the computer. I had it setup right just needed to change the base image it was creating some really weird colors due to the multiply.

Here's what it looks like at the moment;

are the leaves part of the bitmap or a detail?