Turn the main mask into a separate paint layer & fill layer.

[Elbao]

The main mask is currently a fusion of a mask-paint layer and a mask-fill layer. Some of the problems with it are:

• You cannot copy/paste/duplicate the painted strokes to a separate mask-paint layer.
• You cannot clear the mask, without deleting its children.
• You cannot fade out the painted strokes or give them a special blend mode.
• You cannot change the fill color (white/black) afterwards.

Would it not be great if Substance would create a separate paint and fill layer by default instead? You would get the exact same functionality using an already existing system, but without any of the limitations mentioned above. The concept of having a main mask could then be made redundant.

A more conservative option would be to give the user the functionality to convert a main mask into a paint layer + fill layer afterwards.

[SerQQ]

Agree with you!
In general, I would make it so that it would be impossible to paint on the base mask without “adding a Paint” layer on it! So that by default it would be like Fill

[Olivier27679777gw7t]

Convert the main mask into paint layer or fill layer is a good idea ! But we can already start with a paint layer as base to copie past it easily. But yeah if it's already like that it's painfull to extract informations.

[Cyril Dellenbach]

Hello @Elbao, Hi everyone,

I'm not exactely sure to understand the issue here.

For the copy/pasting, you can copy the content of a mask (Ctrl + Alt + C) and paste it into another mask (Ctrl + Alt + V). If you want to copy the mask content into a paint effect, why not directly start with the paint effect? That being said, I like the idea of converting the content of a mask into an effect.

For deleting the content of a mask without its children, you can use the Polygon Fill tool (4) and quickly select all the polygons in order to remove the strokes.

Unfortunately, the mask don't have blending mode indeed, but the effects do. So instead of painting directly inside the mask, it's interesting to work with a paint effect.

A Levels effect can be used to invert the mask. Otherwise, you can once again use the Polygon Fill tool to simply fill the mask with black/white.

However, I'm maybe missing something from your message, so let me know if my answer isn't the one you expected.

Best regards,

[Local347616408b14]

Hi, so is there no way to turn a fill layer into a paint layer? I want to use the smudge tool on a fill layer but I am unable to. 

[Cyril Dellenbach]

No, this is not possible. An interesting way of using the Smudge Tool and keep it non destructive: Add a Paint Layer on top of your Fill Layer, switch its blending mode for PassThrough, and apply to all channels (RMB on Blending mode).

The Passtrough duplicate/flattens the bottom layer and apply the effect on top of it.