Transparency Maps Tutorial

[aurick]

Greetings, everyone!

Something that you've seen me use in projects like the two butterfly pictures and in my recent Poser-to-ZBrush projects involved the use of Transparency Maps.

As many of you know, you can make any texture into a transparent texture, which makes any parts of an object that are covered by a black texture invisible. There are two drawbacks to this method. First, what if there are some black parts of the texture that you want to keep? Second, transparent textures sometimes leave a subtle, yet annoying, black edge.

Necessity being the mother of invention, catalyzed by Joe Dorsey's "Size Matters", I hit upon the technique that is taught in this tutorial script.

Edit: For the script to work in version 1.51, you will need to also download this text file kindly provided by Jaycephus and use it to replace the text document downloaded with the Zip file above.

The technique is useful for a variety of purposes, both in 100% ZBrush work, and in texturing or modeling using objects imported from other programs.

To run the script, just download it by right-clicking on the link above, then unzip it to your ZScript folder. This will create a new folder for you called "Masking". There are two files in it, which must remain together if you choose to move the script to another folder.

Please let me know what you think! I've been very careful this time to keep it completely within the realm of what the Demo version can do, so it can be played by anybody.

Cheers!

[Kathy]

I'll agree on the subtle black edge statement.

One of those busted my chops on a project. (I ended up going in a different direction)

Thanks aurick!!!

[Stonecutter]

One of the clearest ZScript tutorials I've seen, and a real eye-opener on the power of Alphas!
Thanks for the clear explanation, Aurick...a real winner!

[Tag]

Great script Aurick, thank you!
I had never tried the 3D copy feature before the texture master script. I've been reading about it since and thinking it would be interesting to take a look at, but I didn't have a clue on how to use it. Your script so clearly showed both 3d copy and showing and hiding points with alphas, thanks.

[Muvlo]

Thanks for the script Aurick! Scripts like this one and TM have really shown me the power of texturing, something I'd never given much thought too....

[drjjwow]

man o man this is a really cool script.. down the road when version 200.10 comes out this tut. will still be smoke'n... thanks you so much im learning alot from you .... thanks again

[cneofotistos]

=* , aurick.

quote:

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a thinking artist is no suprise

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[juandel]

what an addition to z-knowledge! wonderful, Matthew!

- juandel

[Tony]

Thanks Aurick! This Z-newbie can use all the help he can get.

[Jaycephus]

One line in the .txt file needs to be changed to work with 1.5. (AUTOINT changed to AUTO INTENSITY)

Here is the updated file:Transparency Masking.txt

[aurick]

Thank you, Jaycephus. I have linked to it in the tutorial description above, as well.

[SpaceMan]

Thanks aurick and Jaycephus- the zip and replace txt with Jaycephus's text file works in Z2

[BazC]

Greta script, I've learned a lot from it! Thanks Matthew - Baz

[aurick]

ZBrush 2 makes it even easier to do this.

In the example above, I have simply applied the texture (which as you can see is non-transparent) to a single polygon plane, and also left the alpha selected. No masking at all has been used here. Z2 uses the alpha for visibility and the texture for color -- with better results than a transparent texture would accomplish!

[Frenchy Pilou]

Magic
Pilou