Detail Textures

Detail Textures stacks a secondary albedo and normal map on top of the base layer, usually at a much higher tiling rate. Because the detail layer breaks up the base pattern, the eye stops reading the macro-tiling, and close-ups gain genuine surface complexity.

When to use it

Tiled environment textures that read repetitive at distance.
Hero props that need micro-scratches up close.
Skin — pore-level detail over the base albedo.
Foliage — micro-grain on leaves and bark.

Difference from Layer Textures

Layer Textures blend up to four full albedo and normal layers at the base tiling, controlled by masks. Detail Textures adds a single second layer at independent (higher) tiling, multiplied or overlaid. They solve different problems.

How it works

The shader samples _DetailAlbedoMap and _DetailNormalMap at the secondary tiling, then blends them into the base layer. Albedo uses an overlay-style mix (base * detail * 2, biased to grey) so neutral detail textures preserve the base brightness; normals combine through Reoriented Normal Mapping.

Properties

Inspector label	Shader property	Type	Default	Description
Detail Albedo	_DetailAlbedoMap	Texture2D	grey	Secondary albedo. Neutral grey means no albedo change.
Detail Normal	_DetailNormalMap	Texture2D	bump	Secondary tangent-space normal.
Detail Tiling	_DetailTiling	Vector4	(8,8,0,0)	Tiling (xy) and offset (zw) for the detail UV.
Albedo Strength	_DetailAlbedoStrength	Float (0–1)	1.0	0 = no albedo blend, 1 = full.
Normal Strength	_DetailNormalStrength	Float (0–2)	1.0	Detail-normal influence.
Detail Mask	_DetailMask	Texture2D	white	Where the detail layer applies.
Detail UV Channel	_DetailUVChannel	Enum	UV0	Mesh UV channel for the detail sample.

Usage

Author or source a grey-grunge detail texture — 50% grey is neutral, darker darkens, brighter brightens.
Assign it to the Detail Albedo slot and set tiling to 8–16x for typical environment use.
Add a high-frequency detail normal for surface micro-bump.
Mask the detail to recessed regions for a weathered-cracks look.


material.SetTexture("_DetailAlbedoMap", grungeTex);
material.SetTextureScale("_DetailAlbedoMap", new Vector2(12f, 12f));
material.SetFloat("_DetailAlbedoStrength", 0.6f);

Tips & gotchas

Neutral grey is the safe default — anything darker or brighter shifts the base palette.
Prime-ish tiling values (7, 11, 13) hide the repeat better than 8 or 16.
Keep one of the two normals dominant — Reoriented Normal Mapping is stable but reads noisy if both maps are heavy.
Cost is two extra texture samples, so mask aggressively when many materials share the screen.

Normal Mapping — base normal layer.
Layer Textures — full multi-layer blends.
Triplanar Mapping — detail can run on top of triplanar too.
Occlusion & Lightmap — AO interacts with detail darkening.