Simple way to restrict displacement?

[gregsandor]

I have a small pebble texture displacement on the ground, and on top of that I have a manhole cover which also has a fine displacement.  I do not want the pebble texture to displace where the manhole cover is.   The way I'm planning to restrict it is to use the same mask that restricts the location of the metal plate, as an inverse mask on the pavement layer, but this is more complicated than I like, especially with the number of these I'm placing.

Is there a simple way to restrict the pavement displacement from showing through the manhole cover?  Maybe a checkbox in one of the shaders?

[Hetzen]

The simplest way would be to 'add' all your manhole masks together to use as one inverse mask for your road texture.

At some stage I would really love to see some sort of mask channel facility, where I would plug my mask into a 'mask header' node, which I can select from a 'mask header list' in the blending connection, rather than having to scroll through all of the nodes used, and then have an option of 'hide connection' so that I don't have to see the connected line. This would seriously help clean up complicated node structures, and allow you to make changes to your mask without having to unplug anything.

Sure, you can already do this to some degree, by plugging your mask nodes into a  node that effectively doesn't do anything, then name that something like "00_Mask_River" so that it pops up at the top of the list. But it would be usefull to be able to hide some of the wires.

Anyway, strayed off topic there a little.

[gregsandor]

Here's the result of using the individual masks stacked and acting as Invert Blendshader on the main pavement mask.  Is there a simpler way to do the same thing?

[Hetzen]

Use a blue 'Add' node instead of a Surface Layer.

[Hetzen]

You could also set up just one manhole cover, then link that into a series of 'transform' nodes to offset them, rather than having one set up per.. Might work. But then you'll have to duplicate that for your inverse masks too.

[gregsandor]

You could also set up just one manhole cover, then link that into a series of 'transform' nodes to offset them, rather than having one set up per.. Might work. But then you'll have to duplicate that for your inverse masks too.

Completely agree with wanting the ability to hide connections to reduce clutter, also to be able to hide camera view lines on preview screen, as well as to hide the damned left lide of the window pane as I never use anything over there.

The covers are all different styles and sizes so they require individual setups.

Changing the shader tree to use Add nodes now. 

[gregsandor]

Fixed the displacement, remade the diffuse maps, and dropped the displacement offset a bit.  Here's the current state of my parking lot:

[Hetzen]

Those maps work extremely well on that texture.

[inkydigit]

all you need now is some oil stains and some discarded gum/cigarette butts etc, and you are on to a winner!