Applying texture - an introduction for beginners

Tips, Tutorials and Help
1

Hi all,

I try to learn working with textures as shown here:

Using the stamp tool with an image works fine. But when I load an image for alpha in the stroke-stamp window and I try to make a stamp, my texture has no colour information anymore, only the alpha map gets stamped.
Am I missing something?
Is there a more detailed tutorial that shows how vertex graphics combined with an alpha map can be applied to a surface?

2

image
image742Ă—916 52.4 KB

Have you ticked the painting button?

3

Yes, I did check that box.
Here is a short demo of what my problem is.
In the first plane, colour is included.
But when I add alpha, there is no colour anymore. Or is it there and I have to change some settings in the Shading and Post Process window?

4

Hi, I think the color is there in the second example. However, you need more vertices in the second plane - it’s only got 14k, that means it’s hard to see any detail in the painting. The first plane you use has 500k verts. That ought to solve it.

5

Screenshot_20230217_084837_Nomad Sculpt
Screenshot_20230217_084837_Nomad Sculpt1920Ă—1152 122 KB

Top left: painted with low resolution, no alpha, colour shows up
Lower left: after subdividing to over 1.08 mio vetices, painted with no alpha, colour shows up
Right: same settings with added alpha, tweaked the offset within the referring layer to 0.2, colour is barely visible. How can I improve visibility?

6

Yep, you’re right. I think I’ve worked out what to do. By default the texture paint uses the brush (stroke) alpha, which means the colour is applied with varying intensity depending on the stroke alpha. What we want, however, is for the colour to be applied evenly (with a constant alpha), but with the sculpting action (stroke alpha) applied with varying intensity in order to create the bumps. To do this go into the painting menu of the sculpting brush you are using (clay in your case) and make sure the settings are as shown below

image
image1366Ă—1024 3.5 MB

Basically have colour set to white, roughness set to what you want, and then uncheck “use stroke alpha” and “use stroke falloff”. That worked for me with my test.
Hope it helps.

1 Like
7

Thank you very much, that does the trick!

Screenshot_20230217_092931_Nomad Sculpt
Screenshot_20230217_092931_Nomad Sculpt1920Ă—1152 165 KB

You make my day.

Screenshot_20230217_205722_Nomad Sculpt
Screenshot_20230217_205722_Nomad Sculpt1920Ă—1152 124 KB

This is fun!

8

No problem. You might know this already, but if you want to soften the bumpiness with the smooth brush, if you create a new layer and use the smooth brush on the new layer, then you won’t smudge the paint as you smooth. If you don’t create a new layer the smooth brush will smear the paint and spoil it.

1 Like