Zbrush advanced masking

NAIMA

Hi I have read all basic tuts on normal and simple masking but I find that I need something more precise to work with , I have a graphic tablet but even with that I can't draw straight lines and shapes , I used the lazo tool but it's not easy to control and have precise and thing strings drawed precisely ....



As you can see I can't really have precise borders with the masking and make very thinclose lines , is there something I am missing among the basic tuts? or there are some more advanced stuff that I do not knwow that coudl helme me there?

thanks a lot for attention ....

cryrid

These are the first thoughts that pop into my head, in no particular order.

• Sometimes getting a good mask can come down to the flow and density of the polygons in the area. It's possible a unified skin / dynamesh could help let you paint masks better in some by created a more consistent polygon density in the area you're trying to work in.
• If you're using MaskPen, apply an alpha with a harder edge or change the focal shift
• Once you paint a mask you can always blur or sharpen it.
• In the case of plates / scales, you might want to even try extracting the mask from the existing surface instead of just sculpting/inflating it. Separate peices could be more physically accurate to what you're trying to recreate, the edges sharper as there are no polygons being pulled from the main shape, and this would let you use the move tool to tweak them closer to eachother as needed.
• You could use the masks to pull out the larger forms, and then go back over the creases with a pinch / dam_stand / slash brush to clean things up.
• Perhaps convert the masks to polygroups so that you can use the Group Loops tool to help isolate them.

NAIMA

cryrid wrote: »

These are the first thoughts that pop into my head, in no particular order.

• Sometimes getting a good mask can come down to the flow and density of the polygons in the area. It's possible a unified skin / dynamesh could help let you paint masks better in some by created a more consistent polygon density in the area you're trying to work in.

Done I reached 8 subdivision to have smoother draws...

• If you're using MaskPen, apply an alpha with a harder edge or change the focal shift

Dunno why sometimes when using freehand I can barely see the paint , may be couse I use a graphic tablet and if I do nto press hard it doesnt show much , so I use usually the lasso tool ....

• Once you paint a mask you can always blur or sharpen it.

Yeh I do that too but mostly I use and need sharp ....

• In the case of plates / scales, you might want to even try extracting the mask from the existing surface instead of just sculpting/inflating it. Separate peices could be more physically accurate to what you're trying to recreate, the edges sharper as there are no polygons being pulled from the main shape, and this would let you use the move tool to tweak them closer to eachother as needed.

what you mean in specific? so far I did mask some parts and inflated

• You could use the masks to pull out the larger forms, and then go back over the creases with a pinch / dam_stand / slash brush to clean things up.

I usue hpush and pinch to cut more but still if the linees drawed aren't so straight due to free hand I dunno how I can fix much , mostlyu how to make thin lines close to each other ...

• Perhaps convert the masks to polygroups so that you can use the Group Loops tool to help isolate them.

How to ?

Tough still the problem of drawing them precisely remains ....

Butthair

If it's precision you want, you might need to take a different approach to the make of the model. For instance, the dragon decor I'm guessing is a separate subtool from the blade? If it isn't, splitting up pieces into more subtools would help increase the poly limits per piece.

If they are separate, you may benefit from using the extract function ( Tools > Subtool > Extract ). on the parts you have masked. This would create a new subtool of those parts and from there you could split them up further by polygroups ( if so desired ). Just be careful as the more subtools you have will make a tedious cycle of exporting them for baking in xNormals ( I'm assuming you're doing the zBrush to xNormal workflow ).

This way, you can then sculpt the fine detail on the handle and take advantage of dynamesh to re-allot your poly density to where needed ( either that or.... retopo )

There is also the option of doing HD sculpting, now, I've done HD sculpting, but I couldn't quite get that hi res information out of zBrush to well, so it ended up not happening. I know it is possible, but yeah, I lean towards separate subtools in this case.



Going in another direction, there is a function in zBrush called Create Alpha ( Tools > Masking > Create Alpha ) which makes a texture image of your mask of the model ( you will need to unwrap this however or it may look screwed up ). This way you could take it into Fotoshoppe and do precise mask drawing ( you could even up the res if so desired ). Once you're done in Fotoshoppe, you can re-apply the mask by loading it in your alphas and applying it ( Tools > Masking > Mask by Alpha ).


So, if any of this isn't clear or if something sounds like it's something you want to do but don't fully know how, I could attempt to elaborate further with pictures!

cryrid

Subdividing alone might not be enough unless the faces are nice and consistent first (and like butthair said, especially if all those polygons are being distributed throughout the entire model, blade and all).

Extracting creates a new subtool from the mask. Separate meshes tend to have a more distinct separation vs when everything melts into the same object. Generally if the piece is separate in reality, it works better to have it separated in the sculpt. But even extraction on the ability to paint masks normally.

If you think your tablet is the problem, have to tried adjusting the overall pressure settings, or the pressure settings of the brush itself? Could you maybe post a video painting masks on the default sphere (sub divide it to a million or so) to show what kind of behavior you're getting out of your strokes? The image doesn't really show any masking inaccuracies.

Internet Friend

NAIMA wrote: »

Dunno why sometimes when using freehand I can barely see the paint , may be couse I use a graphic tablet and if I do nto press hard it doesnt show much , so I use usually the lasso tool ....

While holding down Control to activate the MaskPen, all the Brush and Stroke settings affect the MaskPen. So to fix this problem:

In the Brush menu, go to Tablet Pressure and change the Size and RGB Intensity curves. By default the Focal Shift of RGB Intensity is all the way up, drop it to 50% to get a linear response and drag the left side of the curve up to set the minimum intensity.

In the Stroke menu enable LazyMouse with a low LazyStep to help you draw straight lines.

edit: If you wanted to get really crazy you could ZAppLink over to Photoshop, use paths to polypaint the areas you want to mask, then convert polypaint to masking.

sprunghunt

have you tried using the mask curve tool? It lets you draw masks using a path based system instead of doing it freehand. It's next to the circle mask tool