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Displaying masks; previewing non-Camera mappings


tiburbage
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This past week, I learned a couple of useful things I hadn't been aware of before:

1) View Masking: If you've created mask layers, and you want to be reminded of what the defined mask is, just Ctrl+CLICK on the layer in the Layers panel. The transparent (masked) regions will display on the model as frozen/masked. In fact, this will work for any layer which has some transparent regions. (see also Layers popup menu: Freeze Transparent Pixels).

2) Preview Projection Mappings (Cube, UV, Cylindrical, Spherical) to get visual feedback while tuning them and without the Smart Material Preview:

After selecting a Smart Material or Stencil, in the Material/Stencil Control Panel, select e.g. Cube Mapping (or UV-Mapping), then click Settings to its right. Show Preview ON. Now you can use the transform buttons on the Control Panel or the 2D gizmo to offset, scale, or rotate the mapping and see what you're doing. I like the gizmo: RCLICK on the tiny center/pivot square to open (if you don't see it, click the recenter button on the Control Panel). For Cube Mapping, you can then also see, and so make visual adjustments to how the projections blend using MapSharpness. It works nicely for UV-Map projection as well, but the Settings are different.

Not exactly sure what map we're seeing for the Smart Materials, but it is a big help especially in dialing in the scaling.

Edited by tiburbage
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Also noticed by accident that when a Smart Material is active, you can preview and transform those mappings in the viewport via Ctrl+RDRAG. I guess it is showing the top-most layer (image) of the material...

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Thanks for the tips! The number 1 is useful! but I have a problem! When I pressed "Ctrl + Click" the viewport changed to mask! That's ok! But now I don't know how to get back to the previous state in the viewport! I pressed "5" in my keyboard but it didn't work! and I was looking for an option in the "view" menu, but I couldn't find a solution!

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The "masked" areas are in 3DC terms in a "freeze" state. You just need to clear it: Ctrl+D Freeze > Unfreeze All.

Edited by tiburbage
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On 6/6/2023 at 9:45 PM, MJonathan said:

Thanks dude! great info! Can I ask you.. How did you find the information about this? I didn't associate "Unfreeze All" with a state of viewport, like pbr, metalness, roughness, wireframe, etc!

I'm not sure, really. Probably just by watching a bazillion videos like the more recent videos on the Paint Room, and I dug in a lot on videos relating to Freezing and the Freeze tool, and the Pose Tool in the Sculpt room. Just trying to understand how 3DCoat masking support relates to ZBrush, which has excellent, very fluid masking support.

Because 3DCoat doesn't support grayscale layer masks as in Photoshop or Substance Painter, but rather uses Paint Layer Transparency to stand for what black means in regular compositing. I'm still not 100% sure whether the Freeze state of pixels separate data, or is just Opacity/transparency data. But 3DCoat will at least translate between Opacity/Transparency state and Freeze state.

 

Edited by tiburbage
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