ZBrushCentral

mask from primitive to polymesh?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I know this is possible I use to do it in z2…

Say I’ve got a primitive and I create a cool mask for it using the row and columns options in the mask palette, how do I get that mask onto the derivative polymesh object (in order to delete hidden)?

The way I tried:
Mask Pallete : Make Alpha
Alpha Pallete : Make Texture
Create Polymesh object
Texture Pallete : turn on, select texture
Mask Pallete : Mask By Intensity

Also tried using the original alpha with Mask By Alpha but in both cases it just masks the entire object (doesn’t reflect my mask).

Figuring this should be jet simple… all help much appreciated.

~sG~

#2

So my initial method seems to work if I subdivide the polymesh object at least once before running Mask By Intensity. But I still have not found a way to get this to work from a lvl.1 primitive to a lvl.1 polymesh object.

Any ideas? good or bad I’ll try them…

thnx!
~sG~

#3

I haven’t had the problem that you encountered.


  1. Mask All
  2. Set masking values and press Col, Row or Grd
  3. Create a blank texture of the desired size
  4. Press Tool>Masking>Create Alpha
  5. Clear the mask
  6. Make PolyMesh3D
  7. Select the alpha
  8. Press Tool>Masking>Mask By Alpha
I also get the same results if for step 8 I use Alpha>Make Tx, turn off the alpha, and then use Tool>Masking>Mask by Intensity

Either way, the mask is just fine.

You will notice some gray areas on the resulting mask. This is because ZBrush doesn’t mask polygons. It masks points. The gray areas show the polygons that are being only partially influenced by the masked points. But all the points that should be masked are masked.

#4

Interesting - I suppose that the issue is point masking then. If I mask by column, select 1 and skip by 1, then essentially every point is masked correct? That’s why it appears to mask the entire object when I load it on the polymesh.

This explains why introducing a level of subdivision seems to work as it’s adding inbetweens.

Thanks Aurick~