Zbrush , extruded selection question

NAIMA

Hello , I have a quick question for any Zbrush expert out there ....

let's say that I have masked a part of a surface , then I have extruded that surface and then removed the mask .... how can I do to select the extruded tops as a mask or polygroup or the like?

Without recalling the old masking back ofc ...

I mean this because I have extruded several details over surfaces at different times , but now I wanted to polypaint only on top of those extruded details leaving untouched possibly the bottom surface ... is that possible somehow?

thanks for any answer...

|MM|

I've read this like 3 times and still I'm not sure what you mean.
From what I can make out you want to mask the topmost part of the extracted subtool?

If so, it is in a different polygroup so you should have problems masking or hiding it.

NAIMA

Ok lets say a flat plane ...

I mask a shape with the brush ...
I invert the mask and extrude with deform inflate like by 2 ...

then I remove the masking

my problem is that now to polypaint over the top most part of the extruded parts I woudl like to be able to have again that mask but I do not have so how can I mask again without going manually in?

cryrid

From my reading, he didn't extract it, but rather just masked an area and then extruded it out with either the move brush, deformations, or transpose.

The preventative measure would be to use Ctrl+W to turn the mask into a polygroup before extracting.

Since it's too late for that, you may have luck with Cavity masking, playing with the picker/brush depth settings, or toying with the Topological automask (which worked well for me in a test). In this case you'd be able to repaint your mask, and then convert it back to a new polygroup for future reference.

WarrenM

Maybe create a poly group when you have it masked off? That might work. Then you can select that poly group later with CTRL+SHIFT+Click. I don't think you can save and recall masks in ZBrush.

NAIMA

yes is what Cyrid said , but how can I undeerstand how it works the cavity provile? doing by trial and error takes too much time and I woudl like ot see a reference to understand how t make the profile shape ....
as for tha automask I coudln't find in the masking options ....

cryrid

Topological, it's at the bottom of them. It's most likely not going to work well now that I've seen you've used inflate, which would probably give the extrude a gradual curve. I think it's better suited to a sharp surface change like you would see from extruding with transpose.