Masking straight lines?

[Space76Ghost]

Hello,

Apologies in advance if this has been covered in a previous thread.

I wanted to know if there is a way to have a mask not look so distorted? When I draw a rectangle mask the edges are not a straight edge? I tried the curve option but then it just masks that entire section not the area I am trying to target. I have even tried the hiding topology method and just masking what I had visible or not visible. I am trying to make a belt by extraction method.

My 2nd question is… is there also a way to apply straight topology brush lines? I tried holding down shift but it doesn’t really do what I want it to do. I thought of trying to design the belt with the topology brush. I know these are two ways to do it.

I am just starting out in Maya 2014, thought of designing a belt there but I am not that advanced yet.

Any suggestions would be great! I welcome opinions! Attached is a visual of what I am looking to do accomplish.

Thanks!

Ghost

Attachments

[Doug_Jones]

First things first. Model character, pose later. Masking and poly painting depend on the underlying mesh to work. Enable PolyFrame so you can tell where those points are.

[Zeddie]

the mask mask’s points, so if the points are not aligned you can’t get a clean mask.

i’m sure there a many ways to approach this…one way is to subdivide so the polys are in essence smaller…then you’ll get a clean mask to extract the belt from.

basically to get a straight line you have to have enough polygons.

[dillster]

What Zeddie said. There are lots of ways to get around the issue, it’s different for everyone. Playing with the Extract Polish settings alone can get a clean edged extraction. Or, the Deformation>Polish options are another method.

Another method for working on low poly models is to instead use the Slice Curve Brush as that establishes new geometry and polygroups along the lines created. Once done, the polygroups can be split into individual subtools (belts, pants etc.).
I tend to first duplicate the original low poly subtool, do the Slice Curve thing and when I’ve split the parts I want, I delete the duplicated subtool so the split parts are on the original.
Like I said, it’s different for everyone and what I describe might or might not be for you.

[Thor]

I usually use slice curve like dillster said… but you can use masks too.

Mask

Ctrl-w to create group

(or if you only have one subd level you can use ctrl-shift-e to edge loop)

Deformation > Polish by groups

Then extract and then polish by features