Dumb idea. I find that when I blur a mask I am hitting the blur button over and over. I wonder if it is possible to add an interactive blur/sharpen mask slider? Just an idea. Thanks!
The problem always exist the more dense the mesh is. This would be such a handy feature!
If you are on ipad with stylus, maintain mask button and click in or out the mask to blur or sharp mask.
Sure, tapping the button or the shortcut is known. But a slider which can blur a mask border instantly even on dense mesh is much more elegant.
Now ( like in other apps) it is a maniac woodpecker like action cluttering the undo history.
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Lol, woodpecker make me laugh
Yup, stubled onto this, but though about that a couple of times myselfā¦
Doesnāt even have to dynamicly update, a slider with a percentage and a apply smoothing button would do for me 2.
A Soft mask (like in fusion or other compositing software)
Would probably solve most soft masking challenges.
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Iāll probably do something at some point.
I donāt really like the idea of just spamming the blur operation, it might not work as well as people might think as itās dependent on the topology/density.
Right now itās not high priority but Iām thinking about more control for masking.
The polygon might work but at first Iād like something a bit more intuitive/organic/fast.
For example I was thinking:
You drag your finger and can expand/grow the shape. If your finger is at the center of the shape (far from the edges), you expand it with a soft blur.
If you start the gesture with your finger on the edge, you grow but with sharp contour.
The grow algorithm can be tricky to implement depending if itās based on topology/screen/world space.
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Sounds good, Iāll stop after this 
But I was thinking about it now, enabled the Smooth button on masks would probably also help/ be nice?
I am thinking of a simpler method. If you can use the blur brush to brush the mask, it will make the mask easier and faster, just like the blurring of paint transition colors.
Like Zbrush, you can manually blur the mask, but the operation steps of Zbrush are more cumbersome, and Nomad can simplify the steps.
The smooth tool usually has the same limitation since itās based on topology so you wonāt get consistent screen space āspeedā.
If you subdivide the face a few time, youāll see itās slower.
Iāll probably add it anyway though.
However the Smudge tool is a screen space effect so not tied to the topology, so it will work better.
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Blur is really slow on high details. The smudge tool is very good, but requires a 2-axis spread option to mimic the blur effect. The Substance Painterās blur brush uses the smudge tool + 2-axis spread to imitate the effect, which can quickly blur in high details, which is great.
Anyone asking for something like a blur slider thinks of high density meshes, I am sure.
If itās low poly, tapping on blur is the way to go.
A slider is easy to understand.
Mask grow with gestures you described for soft or hard edge sounds innovative.
A two finger tap on blur and one finger slide like layer opacity in Procreate could be a UI slider replacement as well. With gesture language already known.
But I would like to share some thoughts about gestures only:
Procreate makes a mistake in using too much gestures only options.
Why?
Gestures only are not self explaining, taking a good portion of easy learning curve. Gestures only are only discovered when you have heard about it, not while playing around. They are easy forgotten when not using everyday.
This is my Procreate experience making me sometimes mad that so many options are hidden in gestures, badly or not documented at all.
What does Procreate wrong?
If one is going the way to implement functions accessible only via gesture, a gesture list for manual plus a list available inApp is mandatory. Ongoing updated.
If a list is present, hidden features can be discovered inverting Procreate negative experience. Exploring a new software, I often look at the shortcut list. And I am often surprised to find useful functions I never heard of before. Could be a beginner projects with gesture/shortcut background image
That said, I really would encourage you, to keep extra focus on easy access of informations.
There is no app doing it better than Nomad. The ā?āafter so many functions are a blast. So I am not really concerned that much, but wanted to remind.
I might be stubborn for this one but I donāt find it elegant.
The slider would still rely on the topology (same thing as tapping lot of time), so I might get some āwhy the slider have no effect on my 3M polymesh?ā
But Iāll see what Iāll do, same for smooth/smudge support for masking. (not sure if it should be 2 separate tool, like SmoothMask and SmudgeMask, or simply an option in the tool settings).
ā
Hard to say for me as Iām not an artist, but I know Procreate is the most successful paint app by far on the iPad.
Also I was inspired by them for a few things (cheap price without subscription, overall sleek interface, etc).
Iām trying to find the sweet spot between:
1 Productivity
Basically I got a lot of "can you move feature_X to the main viewport?
But if I were to do that, the remaining working space would be 50x50 pixels.
One way to improve it without breaking 2. is to use more customization, but my UI is not yet ready for that. Iāll probably do it for the left bar as itās a regular request.
2 Simple interface
Self explanatory, sometimes the enemy of 1. and 3.
3 Feature discovery
This one is the reason why each buttons have a label (except the top ones, as it would be an eye-sore).
Something that I should do more is displaying a popup banner on top of the viewport with hints (for example when you click the color picker button).
Iāll do it for the trim+multiresolution as well
ā
Allowing primitive editing inside the viewport with interactive widgets will typically improve the 3 points altogether. Thatās why this feature is high priority to me.
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Thanks for this detailed answer. This sounds very good!
And some bla bla
I am asking for a complete gestures list in Procreate forum since ages. No success.
Most are in manual, but somewhere, not collected in a list.
Thatās my main critic with gestures only. If one uses gesture only features, do everything that they will be discovered easily. Keep your point 3 in focus, so to say.
Gestures are super cool then.
Procreate success.
Procreate was the very first serious painting app for iPad, promoted by Apple with several awards. Unique those days. Everyone knows it and they have a huge social media team. Savage is hiring top notch artists from early days on giving the App some extra glamour.
Procreate is working very sufficiently with device memory allowing big canvases and lots of layers. Crashes were super rare before 4 and still are not often since 5x.
I guess that is main reason for their success.
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Regardless of the solution I would like a fast automated blurred mask solution to bend limbs, twist limbs, and gradually scale things. My thoughts were a more efficient blur on masks drawn with the Mask Select and Mask brush hence why I suggested a slider. A screen/camera based alpha controlled mask projection that went though the mesh might work.
If youāll pardon the slight tangent:
Maybe including this functionality into the often requested pose tool may work too?
Since it seems to be basically an editable gradient ramp tool, having an extra option to āconvert to maskā might be an option as well.
Iām going off the assumption that it would work similarly to 3dcoatās version of the tool, so if Stephomi has a different idea for it, maybe it wonāt be applicable.
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Sweet, Iām glad to see that more masking tools are coming. I was going to post this feature request but searched before to make sure I was adding it when it already exists. Iād even be happy if we had an extra button that blurred the mask xās 10. But glad to see something better is potentially coming 
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The other short term fix is to get one of those silicon caps for your apple pencil, so the noise of the constant tap tap tap to blur the mask is less annoying. 