My journey becoming a Unity game developer: Make a game look beautiful-HDRP & Mask Map

Objective: To create a Mask Map to add enhanced HDRP effects to the game objects in the scene. Also, we will modify the material’s settings to improve the look of the objects.

Mask Maps applied to the scene.

Mask Maps uses channel-packed Textures to store multiple Material maps in a single Texture according to Unity. Channel packing is efficient because it allows the renderer to sample up to four grayscale maps that use the same UV coordinates with a single Texture fetch. https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition@7.1/manual/Mask-Map-and-Detail-Map.html#MaskMap

To create a Mask Map, select an object in the scene which we will use the terminal. We can use the material attached to the terminal, but we will demonstrate the Mask Map by creating a new Material using the same name of the material we’re using on the terminal and adding HDRP to the end. Drag the new Material onto the terminal, and change the Shader on the Material to Standard which will turn the terminal pink.

New material created for the Mask Map.

In the Textures folder under this particular Terminal model, drag each texture into their respective slots of Albedo, Metallic, Normal Map, and Emissive Color if it has one. Upgrade the Selected Materials to High Definition Materials under Edit->Render Pipeline->HD Render Pipeline->Upgrade from Builtin pipeline. Once this is done, we will see the terminal change to its new look from the newly created Mask Map that we can see automatically installed in its Mask Map slot. The texture in this slot will look light-blue in color and brighter than the Normal Map we use.

Adjust the settings in the Surface Inputs to make the objects look either more or less Metallic, Smoother or Rougher surface, or its crevice shadows using Ambience Occlusion.

Mask Map added to the material changing the appearance of the terminal.

Now we want to apply this new Material to all of the terminals. If we try to use Overrides, we will notice the new Material not appearing in the list to update the prefab terminals.

Mask Map material change is not available to use on the other terminals.

Instead, select the Terminal prefab in the Assets folder and go to the Materials tab. Drag the new HDRP Material created into the Remapped Materials slot, and click on Apply to use this new Material. Now we will see the new Material added onto every Terminal automatically that uses it.

Applying the Mask Map created to all terminals through the new HDRP material.

Mask Maps are now added to every game object with the Use Emission Intensity turned on to see the final results of HDRP Mask Maps effects applied.

Mask Map added to all game objects.