General Painter workflow questions

[adamcoopr]

I'm very new to substance, but I think it's going to play a huge role in my workflow. That being said:

1. Is there anyway for me to add baked textures to new layers in painter?
2. In the fill mode, is there any way for me to expand / contract my selections, or select edge rings / loops?
3. Once I have a new layer with a painted selection, how do I mask that, so I only paint within the masked section?
4. Is there a recommended scale to work with? We tend to work with meters, but I have to crank up all my brushes.
4. Maybe I could make one myself, but I'd love an environment similar to the one in the beta video - just a nice dark gradient or something.
5. Will painter be flexible enough to work as a standalone painting app, without a heavy reliance on pre-existing substances?

It looks SUPER promising, but my head is spinning with a few questions right now

[unity2k]

I'm not going to be able to answer everything, but I thought I'd answer where I can so you have some immediate feedback:

I'm very new to substance, but I think it's going to play a huge role in my workflow. That being said:

1. Is there anyway for me to add baked textures to new layers in painter?

---I've not found a way - yet.

2. In the fill mode, is there any way for me to expand / contract my selections, or select edge rings / loops?

---Nope

3. Once I have a new layer with a painted selection, how do I mask that, so I only paint within the masked section?

---Have you tried Quick Mask, shortcut is "T"?

4. Is there a recommended scale to work with? We tend to work with meters, but I have to crank up all my brushes.

You are painting on a 1024 (default) or a 2048 pixel bitmap across the UV's as you unwrapped them. Scale is what you determine in your UV's.

4. Maybe I could make one myself, but I'd love an environment similar to the one in the beta video - just a nice dark gradient or something.

5. Will painter be flexible enough to work as a standalone painting app, without a heavy reliance on pre-existing substances?

---That is what I've understood Allegorithmic's intentions are.

It looks SUPER promising, but my head is spinning with a few questions right now

[adamcoopr]

Thanks for the help, unity2k!

In regards to the masking issue... I've used quick mask, which is pretty much the same as zbrushes masking system - that works as intended. I guess what I'm not getting, is a paint layer mask. I'll go into fill mode, select a group of polys and assign a new color to them on a new layer. Now I want to constrain painting to the filled regions in that layer. If that makes much sense 

I did figure out how to assign a texture to a new layer. Create a new background / fill layer, and select Diffuse -> Properties -> No Image Set, and choose a bitmap you've imported.

Thanks again!

[kitchendon]

I did figure out how to assign a texture to a new layer. Create a new background / fill layer, and select Diffuse -> Properties -> No Image Set, and choose a bitmap you've imported.

Thanks for posting this. I was looking all over for a way to paint over my existing textures.  The docs are still pretty thin. I also just noticed this tutorial vid which is helping a lot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eer4XPWXr18

[adamcoopr]

So the masking workflow seems a bit strange, but here goes:

1. Create a new layer, add mask (black)
2. Double click the mask to make it active
3. Go into your geo mode, and select white as your color
4. Select elements / polys

This works, however, I don't get a highlight of what I'm selecting. But it still allows me to easily mask out different precise areas throughout my layers so I can paint without too much worry.