Using Stencils with a grey midpoint

[DMG]

I'm a bit out of practice with 3DCoat, so this might be a bit of a dumb question.

I have a texture where I want 50% grey to remain level with the existing surface, black to be indented, and white to be extruded. If I set this as a brush texture, and use Stamp Mode, it behaves as I want.

 

 

However, I want to use a similar texture as a stencil, so I can repeat it across a surface.

When I clear the texture from the brush, and apply a stencil, I get this:

   

Black areas of the texture remain at the original surface level of the object, white is extruded the most, and grey is extruded half way.

How do I get stencils to work in the same way as a brush set to Stamp? 

Cheers

[Carlosan]

Hi

Can you share the stencil to take a look

[Elemeno]

i thought stencils were black for unaffected areas aand white for the affected areas.... 

[DMG]

Hi,

Yes Elemeno, That is my vague understanding too.  But I can't see any other way of getting a repeating texture across a large area. Is there a brush setting that can 'tile' textures?  Like I said, I'm a bit out of practise with 3DCoat.

 

Hi Carlosan, the texture I was testing with is just a random one of just mid-grey, white and black with a bit of blur applied..  I'll be producing a detailed brick texture once I know how to get it to tile. But here's the one I was testing with..

 

[Mihu83]

2 hours ago, DMG said:

Hi,

Yes Elemeno, That is my vague understanding too.  But I can't see any other way of getting a repeating texture across a large area. Is there a brush setting that can 'tile' textures?  Like I said, I'm a bit out of practise with 3DCoat.

 

Hi Carlosan, the texture I was testing with is just a random one of just mid-grey, white and black with a bit of blur applied..  I'll be producing a detailed brick texture once I know how to get it to tile. But here's the one I was testing with..

 

As for tiling stencils, there is a option in E panel, Grid symbol, second from the left, but you need to have seamless stencil to tile it properly.

[Carlosan]

Do you need "Strips" ?

[DMG]

8 hours ago, Carlosan said:

Do you need "Strips" ?

Afraid not.

I'll be doing a brick texture. I need the overall wall surface to be unaffected, but with the mortar indented, and just a little bit of brick texture sticking out.

[Carlosan]

Try creating a Smart Material with brick textures to fill your object.

[DMG]

On 6/12/2026 at 11:13 AM, Carlosan said:

Try creating a Smart Material with brick textures to fill your object.

The items I create need to be geometry only, as they will be manufactured with a CNC machine, so unless displacement from smart materials is applied to the actual geometry, it won't fix my issue. But thanks for the suggestion.

[Carlosan]

One you get a Smart Material applied to the mesh on Paint Room > PPP

 

Use this command to convert the normal map to mesh displacement on Sculpt Room -> Paint to Sculpt Baked Text & Subd

 

 

it is converted as Surface sculpt, can be exported as .stl