Hi everyone. I am having trouble applying an alpha mask. The alpha I am using is rectangular and when I try to apply it as a mask, it wants to fade radially on me, so I’m not getting all of the detail I want. I’ve checked the alpha menu, and there are zeroes in the radial fade and blur sliders. I’ve tried drag rectangle stroke, as well as several others. Anyone know what I can do to get a sharp alpha mask applied? I’ve also tried sharpen mask, which does sharpen it, but does not take care of the radial fade.
Brush focal shift down to -100? Tried whacking the Alpha Intensity graph up to the max?
Thanks, Moochie for the tips…neither allows a rectangular alpha, but the Focal Shift does make the mask much sharper. The only thought I have right now is maybe I should create an alpha that is larger than my rectangle and just make sure my rectangle is in the middle of the alpha, that way it will fade all around, but my rectangle is intact. Below is a picture of what is happening. My alpha is shown as well…the first circle is drag-rectangle, all settings to zero (no fade, etc.) The second circle is the same stroke with Focal Shift set to -100 as suggested.
Hi Slosh, there is a slight bug in the Alpha > Radial Fade slider. When adjusting the value back to zero you should drag the slider a bit further to the left. Stop when the cursor is outside the slider. If you stop while the cursor is still within the slider area the radial fade is in effect at 1.
One of those that will get fixed.
Also alphas are scaled as squares whatever their proportions. If the whole image is important it’s best to create a square alpha with a fair amount of space around the image.
Don’t miss the Stencil palette. Converting your alpha to a stencil by pressing the Alpha>Make St button may be a better way to work for some detailing. Use the stencil Wrap mode to make the stencil conform to your model.
TV, thanks but that didn’t help. I ended up creating an alpha where my section was centered, leaving alot of blank area around it. This worked for me, and I ended up with the result I wanted. The only prob now is that it’s harder to set the brush size properly, since the actual part of the alpha I want to use is in the center. Not impossible, just not as easy as it would be with a pure alpha. Also, if you choose the Alpha which is a full white square, you can’t get a real square to mask something like a window or a door. Hopefully it is a bug they will fix, or maybe just a setting I’m not aware of.
Hi Slosh,
I am also having this exact same problem in ZB3, so it’s not just you. When in mesh edit mode, I cannot drag a square alpha onto my mesh… it always has a radial falloff… no matter what the “rf” is set to or any other settings for that matter.
This works fine in brush mode, though… but that doean’t help me create a 3D mesh from a square alpha.
I’m gueesing that this is a bug, at the moment, unless I’m completely missing something.
Now I’ve played with it, I agree that there’s a problem. I can’t drag out a square using the drag-rect tool … it’s always created as a circle.
pulling hairs out dealing with this issue as well.
More on this issue here:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=45953
Note, the workaround only works in some cases.
Only Rect works. DragRect still shows with radial blur even if Radial Fade is set to 0.