Is there a way in ZBrush to automask by falloff? The idea is that surfaces get effected more/less based on normal direction, all controlled by a user defined curve. In Mari you can do this which is very helpful when painting. I’ve tried messing with the Backface and Directional masking but neither fits the bill.
Thanks,
m
Yeah, already tried all the masking types in there as well as brush/automasking. Unfortunately nothing I’ve found in ZBrush even comes close to what Mari does…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZXo3ywEzLI
-M
http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/brush/auto-masking/ Sometimes workflow can make things easier or harder. Take the path that works rather than saying there is no way there.
There is a “Group by Normals” polygroup option, and an “Auto Mask by Polygroup” brush function which allows for adjacent polygroups to be affected to a diminishing degree or not at all by the brush. Perhaps used in conjunction, they would be helpful for what you want to do.
Group by normals appears to be local normals of the object and not view normals. What I’m looking for is a real time masking based on view normals like what is demonstrated in the Mari video I posted.
@Doug…I understand what you are saying about the path that works. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t look like Zbrush has a feature similar to Mari Edge Masking and it would be very nice to have it. Does it make using ZB impossible for my needs? Not at all. It would just be a great feature to add down the road to help with texture painting (an area where ZB needs a lot of other improvements as well).
thanks,
m
You can not paint on what is not there. Didn’t watch the video. ZAppLink to PSP works for me 
I’m sure it would be a nice feature to have. It should be noted though, that you’re talking about a program that is a dedicated texture painting program, and costs twice as much as Zbrush. If it didn’t excel in its area of specialization and boast some features in that area over Zbrush, there would be no reason to buy it. Zbrush is primarily a sculpting and mesh creation tool with a wide variety of supporting tools, of which texture painting is one.
I’ve been a Zbrush user for ten years now, and they’ve never stopped improving every area of the program. Who knows what you will see down the road. If you want to request a feature however, the troubleshooting board is probably not the best place to do it.
I figured the troubleshooting board was the best place to ASK if there way maybe a way to do this that I was not aware of. ZB has a million ways to do most things and I thought it was better not to assume it couldn’t be done. What I didn’t expect was so much flack for doing so 
Yes, Mari is expensive and I would of course expect it to do things above and beyond in the area it is targeted (texture painting). I use it at work and love many aspects of it. However, ZB is my tool of choice for sculpting and even painting fun stuff at home.
Cheers,
Mitch
Not sure I follow what you are saying exactly. If you didn’t watch the video you probably don’t follow what I was asking for either. Photoshop workflow is great, but has exactly zero to do with edge masking 
The closest thing I have seen to what your looking for is the ‘Mahmask Bias’ brush by Mahlikus The Black, but it was made in an older version of ZBrush (4R4 I think) and doesn’t work quite as well in ZBrush 4R6. It’s still available for download though at the above link. A video showing it’s use can be seen here.
Disclaimer: Don’t bother downloading it if you’re using 4R6.
Not sure what you mean by flak. If you think there was anything agressive in my suggestion about features I hoped would help you, I apologize. But your question veered into a feature request, accompanied by an appraisal of Zbrush’s texture painting capabilities as compared to a dedicated specialist program with a different focus that costs twice as much. The former is misplaced, the latter isn’t particularly helpful.
Feature requests should be delivered to Pixologic directly. They will frankly be lost and wasted on this board, and I only wanted to help you get your request to the place it would do the most good.
Sorry we couldn’t help. Good luck
You haven’t stated what you’re trying to paint that makes this feature so desirable. Hiding groups/parts to drill down to the point of interest can help quite a bit; After all you don’t need to see the toenails while working on the eyebrows. Maybe you don’t have well defined groups.
It’s not so much as what is being painted as much as an overall workflow. Once you have tried edge masking in Mari you will understand how it helps with painting of pretty much every kind of object, organic or hard surface. What it does is prevent you from accidentally painting over previous areas of paint as you rotate around the model. It would be especially useful for spotlight texturing since it also prevents getting any stretched areas that result from projecting on perpendicular normals.
I will submit a feature request to Pixologic for sure.
Cheers,
M
The closest thing Zbrush has to what you’re looking for that I can see is the Polygroups> Group Front function, with the tolerance set in the 50-60 range. You could hotkey that, and use it in conjunction with the Mask by Polygroups functionality, regrouping as you turn the model. Seems like it could be marginally useful in some situations like mechanical objects with extreme angle variations.
Probably easier just to have well defined polygroups and learn the shortcuts for mesh visibility and masking. I’ve never had a problem not painting where I don’t want to in Zbrush.
The good news is, since the basic functionality is there in a primitive form (Zbrush can recognize forward facing normals) the road to the feature you’d like to see is not completely unreasonable to hope for. I don’t know how they might prioritize such a feature, but who knows what you might see down the road.
Good luck