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Inks


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The 'Ink' functions in modo provide a way for users to modulate brush strokes as they are applied. This can apply to affecting colors when painting, or affecting the strength of the sculpting tools. All three options can be utilized individually, or simultaneously in combination to create interesting effects. Found in the 'Paint' and 'Sculpt' toolboxes of the 'Paint' interface tab. To use, simply select the 'Ink' button in the interface and adjust the settings in the viewport or properties panel as necessary.


Image Ink Image Ink

The Image Ink function allows user the ability to place a bitmap image in the viewport (sort of like a floating window) and then using the brush to control the application, users can paint through the image, applying it to their objects surface wherever they stroke. When Image Ink is first enabled, users will need to LMB+click in the viewport to activate the tools widget. If an image were selected prior to this action, its height would fill the viewport with the image. The widget has a number of handles represented as small circles that allow users to adjust the projection plane directly in the viewport. The center handle positions it, while the right handle scales the widget, and the top handle will rotate it. Simply LMB+click on the handle and drag to modify. Users may also use the keyboard shortcuts 'E' to rotate clockwise, and 'R' to rotate counter-clockwise. Scaling is done by pressing 'D' to go down and 'F' to go up. Interactive scaling with the viewport is achieved with the 'Auto Scale' option retaining the scale of the widget over the geometry as the viewport scale itself is modified.
Image Ink also allows users to adjust its standard controls for 'Scale', 'Rotate' and 'Position' as well as a Soft Border percentage and other options by selecting the options found in the tool properties viewport. Users can gain quick access to tool properties by pressing the 'K' key to activate the properties pop-over.

Image Ink PanelStamp: Stamp mode checkbox will apply the entire image ink image in one quick stamp. This option requires the use of Projection Paint. This can be a very useful method for applying decal textures in very precise positions on a 3D mesh as well as for stamping down texture elements such as scars. The stamp option can even be useful for quickly stamping down an image repeatedly to texture a model completely. By using some Soft Border and changing the rotation of the image ink you can create very interesting texture effects quite quickly.

Pixel Blending: The Pixel Blending option will smooth your image when it is scaled beyond its maximum native resolution, reducing visibly pixelated edged.

Repeat: This option will cause the image ink to continually repeat once painting has extended beyond the image boundary.

Auto Scale: The Auto Scale option will scale the image ink frame relative to the viewport being scaled. Useful for applying a consistent texture across the surface of the model. Whenever you zoom in and out of the object, Auto Scale will make sure that relationship remains the same.

Soft Border: The Soft Border option is a percentage that creates an opacity ramp from the center of the image ink to the edges. As you paint through the image plane (Projection Mode) the Soft Border amount will cause the edges to feather, creating a soft blend from the edge of the ink boundary. This is also very useful when working in Stamp mode. With a tiling image as you ink and a soft border value of approximately 50%, you can repeatedly stamp down a texture across the surface of the mesh to create very quick detail mapping.

Scale: The Scale control allows you to change the size of the image relative to the object in your viewport. Reducing the value results in the image appearing smaller relative to the model and increasing the value will increase the relative scale of the image. When using Projection Paint the scale handle is the square handle on the right-hand side of the image plane.

Pos X/Pos Y: These two values represent the position of the center of the image ink frame within the viewport. Values are pixel coordinates with 0,0 being the upper left corner. Each time the Image Ink function is activated, your image frame will be centered within the viewport. The can also interactively position the image ink frame using the circle in the center.

Rotation: The Rotate value tilts the image. In the case of standard 'Fast UV' painting, this is essentially rotating the image in UV space. With Projection Painting the image plane is rotated in screen space. The circle handle at the top of the image plane can be dragged right and left to adjust rotation interactively.

Use Color as Mask:The 'Use Color as Mask' option will use the brightness (Luminosity) of the current Image Ink image as an alpha mask when painting onto the object. So instead of painting the image itself onto your object, the image becomes like a virtual silkscreen allowing the color of the brush to only go through the dark areas of the image.

UV Mask: The UV Mask option provides users the ability to use a secondary image as a painting mask. The only requirement is the masking image must use the same UV Map as the image being painted. This provides users the ability, for example, to bake an Occlusion map image and then use that as a mask to paint rust into the crevices of a old vehicle.

Mask Blur Radius: This option allows users to blur or soften the image applied as a UV Mask. The greater the value the softer the mask transition between light and dark.

Invert Mask: This option inverts the RGB or Gray values of the mask reversing the application of the mask, once enabled, areas that were masked will become paintable, and areas that were paintable will become masked.

Image: Use this popup image loader to load and select images for use with the Image Ink function.

 

Parametric Ink Parametric Ink

The Parametric Ink provides a method to modulate the ink between the foreground (FG) and background (BG) values based on parameters including Slope, Altitude, Incidence Angle, Pressure and Tangent Pressure. The first four parameters are attributes of the surface on which you are painting and the last two are based on tablet input device feedback.

Paramteric Ink PanelParameter: The various parameter options allow uses to choose how the Parametric function modulates the painted brush stroke--
Displacement- The Displacement setting allows users to modulate between the foreground and background color based on the amount of displacement applied to a surface, providing users a means to paint in the cavities of surfaces. When working with procedural texture displacement, users will first need to convert the procedural to an Image Map using the modo baking functions to produce results with this option.
Slope- The slope setting changes the ink from the FG value to the BG value as the geometric normals change. If we look at a sphere in "world coordinates" the top of the sphere has normals that point directly upward, the bottom points directly down and at the equator normals point straight out. These "normals" would range from 0 to 90.
Altitude- Based on the bounding area of the mesh the colors will change using the FG color at the very bottom of the model and the BG color as you reach the top of the mesh.
Incidence Angle- This is the angle of the surface of the model as it relates to the viewport in which you are painting. Polygons that face the view will shade using the FG color, whereas polygon normals that are perpendicular to the view will shade with the BG ink color.
Pressure- When painting with a tablet, 100% pressure will use the FG color for the ink and as you use less pressure it will fade to the BG color.
Tangent Pressure- This allows you to change between FG and BG colors by rotating the tablet stylus.

Shape Preset: Similar in option to the 'Smooth Brush', the Shape Preset options allow users to fine tune the application of the strokes when using the Parametric ink function. Users can select from the various presets, or adjust the 'In' and 'Out' values to further customize the brush shape.

 

Random ink Randomized Ink


The Random Ink option allows the paint tools ink color to randomly vary as you paint on the mesh. There are three input fields for the Random Ink; Hue, Saturation and Brightness. The default values of 0% result in no random variation to the ink. By increasing any of the values you can randomize the ink in Hue, Saturation, and/or Brightness or any combination therein. Setting any of these values to 100% will cause the ink to randomly swing plus or minus 100% from its original value. Setting 'Brightness' and 'Saturation' options to 10-30% can be very useful when creating noise maps to rough up a surface.

Ranomized Ink PanelHue: Modifying this value will result in variations of color for the individual paint dabs when stamped onto the surface. 0% effectively disables this setting, ramping toward 100% with the maximum amount of hue variation in the stroke.

Saturation: Modifying this value will result in variations of color intensity for the individual paint dabs when stamped onto the surface. 0% effectively disables this setting, ramping toward 100% with the maximum amount of saturation variation in the stroke.

Brightness: Modifying this value will result in variations of luminosity for the individual paint dabs when stamped onto the surface. 0% effectively disables this setting, ramping toward 100% with the maximum amount of brightness variation in the stroke.

 

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