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Material Layers and Painting

Combine fill and paint layers with masks and procedural effects.

Updated

Use Properties > Material Layers to build a surface appearance from several layers. Select the model before editing its stack.

Choose the right layer

Layer Use
Base Establish the underlying material.
Fill Layer Apply material across the surface, optionally restricted by a mask.
Paint Layer Apply material where you paint coverage onto the mesh.

Use the Add material layer menu to add a Fill Layer or Paint Layer. Select the new layer before applying a library preset.

Adjust Opacity, Blend, and the Color, Rough, Metal, and Emit channel switches to control its contribution. For example, disable Color when a layer should change roughness while preserving the color below.

Paint a material

  1. Add and select a Paint Layer.
  2. Set its material values or apply a preset.
  3. Choose a paint tool and adjust Radius, Strength, and Hardness in the Tools panel.
  4. Drag on the selected model to paint.

Freehand paints continuously. Line and Box provide a preview while drawing. F adjusts radius; Shift+F adjusts strength.

Paint Through > Include hidden surfaces projects paint through the selected mesh, including hidden surfaces. Leave it disabled when you only want to paint the visible side.

Restrict a layer with a mask

  1. Select a layer.
  2. Use the mask menu to add a White Mask or Black Mask.
  3. Select the mask in the stack before painting or editing it.

White shows the layer, black hides it, and gray shows it partially. A white mask is useful when you want to hide selected areas; a black mask starts with the layer hidden.

Add procedural mask effects

Select the mask and use Add an effect to the selected mask:

Effect Use
Dirt Combine surface coverage, cavity influence, local AO, and breakup.
Cavity Concentrate the effect in recessed areas.
Edge Wear Emphasize exposed surface features.
Noise Break up the mask with a procedural pattern.
Levels Remap the mask's black, white, and midtone values.
Invert Reverse the mask result.

Use the effect's Opacity and its available settings to adjust the result. Move effects up or down to change their evaluation order. The mask's effect list and the object's material layer list are different levels of the stack.

Preserve painted detail

Painting is vertex-based. Very coarse geometry cannot hold fine brush details. Finish major topology changes before painting; a refreshed HardCuts model with changed topology clears affected Paint Layer samples.

See Materials and Textures and HardCuts Handoff.