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Create Alpha from Mask and a material problem

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey, brand new to Zbrush and 3D modeling in general. I’ve been banging my head against the learning curve for a few days now. My first shot at a project is the apparently ubiquitous skull. The tutorial I’m following has been a large help in learning the basic ideas, even though it was made for 3.1.

I’ve got two issues I can’t seem to solve by Googling or, apparently, pushing random buttons while cursing for hours.

  1. When I create a mask and hit Create Alpha in the Mask submenu, it creates either a sort of diffuse full screen gradient as an alpha or something like below. So if I mask out the eyeballs (or lack thereof in this case) and try to save that as an alpha to use later what I get is useless:

  2. This one is embarrassing because it has to be something incredibly simple. I can’t seem to change the material of my skull. When I try, it just makes this tiny bizarre little shape on the forehead. Hitting T and then Ctrl+N and then redrawing the skull with a new material doesn’t work either.

Anyway, hopefully someone can help me out in with these two newbie issues in wording someone incredibly green to everything about this can understand.

problem1mask.jpg

Attachments

problem2material.jpg

#2

  1. You have to have good UV’s for that function to work properly. If your UV’s are OK, and depending on the type of projection, the alpha might look weird but when you hit ‘Mask By Alpha’ it is as it should be. Go to Tool>UV Map and click Delete UV to clear the UV map you have on there then click PUVTiles for the projection type. Draw your mask on the skull then click Create Alpha in Masking submenu. To check it, clear the mask you drew (Tool>Masking>Clear) then click Mask By Alpha button.

  2. Make sure you clear any masks first. Reset the material by selecting the Flat Color material then turn on Mrgb button then go to Color menu and click FillObject button. Then selecting a different material should work.