Three questions to create a pen.

[mill]

Hello.

I have three questions.

I am trying to create a pen.

1. There is a circle around the pen.

How can I avoid this circle?

circle.jpg

2, Zero level is mid gray for the height map.

I can inflate the surface but I can not dig a hole to the surface.

View > show displaced mesh is turned on for visualization　purpose.

depth.jpg

3. Can I import a rectanguar texture to make a pen?

[johnnycore]

1. The circles should not be happening, how did you create these images?

If you used photoshop, make sure the document color mode is set to RGB instead of CMYK, the CMYK black is different from RGB black.

Another thing you can try is create a custom alpha channel in photoshop and save it out as a .TGA 32 bit.

2. Looks like your depth is set to 0%, not sure about this.

3. A rectangular texture should be possible.

[mill]

Thank you for you advice.

1. I created the images in Photoshop.

And the color mode is RGB.

I tried TGA32bit.

But the images are still cutout to circle and the surface all goes to positive direction.

I noticed that if I chose stamp stroke, the surface goes both negative and positive direction.

The circle still appears though.

2. No matter how big the depth value, it does not work.

3. I can import rectangular textures.

But it is squashed and become circle.

I included the psd and tga images as a zip file.

Thank you.

penA.zip

[digman]

Your rectangle bars are too close to the edge.

To create your Alpha:

Make a 512 x 512 image and place your bars in the middle.

Create two layers, which really you did already.

Fill bottom layer with 128, 128, 128 color (equals zero height in 3DCoat). This works better than a transparent background for this type of work.

Top layer, slightly blur your bars, It helps on not getting that jaggy look. The jags will be more pronounced on lower resolution uv maps plus it depends on how large you make the brush size.

Use the Airbrush not the regular paintbrush when you stamp the bars. The regular paintbrush will distort them.

Give the brush some falloff but not too much. On this brush alpha, I set it at 25%

I like using PNG images as they seem to do a slightly better job, your mileage may vary.

Note: You had left a very faint rectangular bar around your rectangles. I had to erase it.

Show displaced mesh will distort some as it is just a representative of displacement not what it will look like on your normal or displacement map.

I uploaded a screencap and the pen I made that is used on the sphere...

Work was done in Per_Pixel mode.

I got the bars slightly off-center, I was in a hurry to get this posted as I have a busy day.

The alpha works both ways, inversion and extrusion, I just showed extrusion.

I made a better pen alpha using grey. I would use grayscale values as you get less jaggies that way... makes for better blurring. Your blue is converted to a grayscale value anyway. Just remake your pen using grayscale values..

Uploaded new pen for you to take a look at and tryout...

[digman]

I reopened 3DCoat and now the regular paintbrush shows no distortion... go figure

It had been awhile since I created an alpha for what you are trying to do. I thought it was strange that the alpha was distorted.

Anyway the above method is something I use but of course their could be different ways...

[mill]

Thank you very much for your time.

Because I don't have 3D-coat at hand.

I will try that next week.

I have something a little bit difficult to explain.

I will explain it next week too.

[mill]

Hi.

My positive and negative means like this in the attached image.

With one brush stroke, I want to move the surface to both positive and negative direction.

It is possible with the stamp stroke, but not possible with the regular strokes.

Jaggyness is not a problem here.

Sorry I forgot to try .png and airbrush thing.

I will try them later.

[mill]

The airbrush tool has solved the positive negative problem.

Thank you for your help.

But the circle around the stroke still appears.

Although the circle disappears with the .png texture, I can not sculpt positive and negative direction with one stroke.

The .png texture only sculpts either positive or negative.

[digman]

Hello again

Remember that 128,128.128 gray is "0" height in 3DCoat.

Make some of your bars darker grey than that number to intrude into the surface.

You can use the regular Paint Brush for stamping the alpha with the stamp tool. It works with splines as well. I am not sure why but the paint brush only distorted my alpha one time...

The airbrush will not stamp using the stamp tool your alpha correctly... Not sure why...

An example png file is uploaded with picture. Per-Pixel mode.

Note: You have to use the stamp tool or splines for 3DCoat to correctly applied the alpha for both inversion and extrusion at the same time or it seems that way...

[digman]

"it works with splines as well"

What I meant to say was that is "it works with the spline tool as well"

[mill]

Your brush works very well.

Thank you very much for your time.

I also found that no matter what value is used for zero level, 3D-coat does not make the circle as long as I save the texture as .png.

And if I use value 127 for zero level, .PSD works as expected.

Most of 3d programs consider 128 as zero level.

I am not sure why 3D-coat has adopted 127 as zero level.

Is it something to do with color profile?

If I convert a SRGB texture to adobe RGB, 128 becomes 127.

Anyway, most of my problems are solved.

Thank you.