Wanted to paint a solid black area on a model and found that when using PM and poainting with 100% black that when I pick up the model the solid black area is now an alpha and transparent on the texture ? Wondering if there is a way to disable this black area as an alpha in the texture ? Obviously painting with 99% strength black doesn’t create the alpha, so that’s the simple solution to not do it at all. Also curious as to how others are using this “feature” ?
Thought I understood it the first time, but now blacks painted on my texture in PM at 95% strength are creating transparent areas when the model is picked up again. I must be doing something really wrong…:o
The process is - create a GUV of the object, create a new texture at 1024x1024 all white.
Drop to canvas with color only checked off. Paint area using simple brush, black, at 95% - looks fine.
Pick up model, and black area is now transparent
This also seems to be something that happens along the way - the model with painted blacks will pick up and display the black painted areas just fine in the beginning, then after a drop/ pickup or two will show transparent on pickup.
Z2 PC on dual 3.6G with 2G ram.
It is possible that you activated the Texture>Transparent button at some point. That could account for what you’re describing.
That’s what I thought initially, but that makes no difference. I’ve created a short .zsc with included test model section to illustrate (sorry if the .zsc setup is lacking, haven’t done too many. There’s also a point where I use the sys. color picker and you need to click on black at that point in the script for it to continue).
On my system, this zsc creates a seeming “permanetly” transparent texture area on the model that doesn’t respond to texture transparency being on or off.
Original mesh created in LW.
It seems like black (0,0,0) at RGB 100 turns transparent regardless of the transparent switch if the texture size is 64x64 or 128x128. At 256x256 painting black works as it should. I only tested the above 3 texture resolutions so I don’t know where the “cut off” resolution lies.
Edit:
Edit2: Removed the first edit. I have no idea what is going on. Making a polymesh3d and painting on that is fine. Also works for Jkushwara’s arm which should already be a polymesh, right?
TVEyes,
Thanks for looking into this - when you say “works” for my arm part do you mean that when the script is run with the attached arm that the painted black area doesn’t appear transparent when it’s finished ? I was able to avoid the problem by changing the rgb value just a bit (adding “5” red).
A second question I have relating to this - is there an easy way to mask off areas for use in PM without having to create a “stencil” ? I’m using the black painted area for a grab and fill then painting white around it, saving as a texture, transferring to an alpha then using as a stencil over the model ?
"paint texture > grab and fill > paint texture > alpha > stencil " seems like it’s more complex than needed…
No, your script ends up with transparent black like you described. I meant creating a polymesh of your arm makes it possible to paint black (RGB 0,0,0). The only thing is that you loose your subdivision levels, but if you Make PolyeMesh3D at the highest subdivision level you can reconstruct the deleted subd levels. Not an optimal solution (it takes more steps and eats more memory), it was more an observation while trying to understand why black turns transparent or is not picked up.
I am perplexed by this problem.
As for your stencil question have you tried creating masks through standard Ctrl+clicking, visibility and polygroupings? Once you have your mask use Hide Unmasked before dropping with PM to limit color and/or displacement. Remember to store the mask for later use.
If you want to be able to view all of your model and still be able to limit PM displacement (will not work for texturing) you should store a morph target at the highest subd level, run PM and with your mask applied apply a 100% morph.
Hope that helps.
Hello …along the same lines, prob a real NEWB question as well. Regarding the brushes alpha… is there a way to import a 16 bit image from PS into the alpha area…and use it like the other brush presets to paint detail on the model? 
thanks …Skips
duh oh… sorry never mind…didn’t realize the PS file must be 16 bit greyscale… was colour :rolleyes:
skips