I don’t know if this is the right way to request new features for ZBrush 5 (or whatever’s next after 4r2b) so if this isn’t the right forum for this, or this isn’t otherwise the right method of requesting new features, then someone please point me in the right direction.
ZBrush’s masking features are quite useful as they are, but I can think of a dozen situations where one might want to create a mask for a tool that they can reuse at a later date. For example, creating a mask to create surface details (or to generate a mask from surface details via cavity mask, etc.) to be used at a later time - say during polypainting, etc. It seems a simple and logical way to do this is to have an import/export feature for masks. This could be done as a vertex based internal thing (save named mask/recall named mask) to be saved with the tool, and/or via UV mapping. The latter (import/export masks based on UV maps) has the upside of being able to edit the mask in other programs (the file could be a grayscale PSD or what have you) where there may be additional tools available not present in ZBrush. However, it has the downside of being tethered to a UV map, and if the UV map changes, then the saved mask is no longer useful. However, I think that’s a very small price to pay to be able to edit the mask in other programs (e.g. photoshop) and therefore worthwhile. I think both implementations have their uses.
Anyone else feel free to chime in if you think this is a good idea (or a bad idea for whatever reasons you may have!)