August, 2007

In this tutorial I'll show you how to use Extract along with Masking to achieve some exciting results. 

Here's the model we'll be using. Make sure you're in Edit mode by clicking on the T key. Also, make sure you're in Draw mode by clicking on the Q key.

Let's reduce the Draw Size to 17. 

Hold the Control key down to go into Masking mode and mask out the area shown here. You can rotate the model by clicking in the area away from the model. 

Open SubTool. 

Click on the Extract button. 

Notice that now there are two layers, one is the original model and second layer is the one we just created with Extract. The model now has a pair of pants. 

On the pant layer let's increase the options to 50 for Edge and Surface. Hold the Control key down and mask out a small area at the bottom of the pants. Make sure you have pressed X for duplicating on both sides of the legs.

We have increased the size of the Extraction edge and it's more visible than the pants edge was. So now we have three layers in SubTools. 

Let's again select the model layer. Hold the Control key down and paint a decorative mask. To create a mask entirely around the model in one step, hold the Control key down and click off of the model first and then drag an area for the masking. 

Let's set the Thick(ness) to .0004. Click Extract. If you don't like the results, click back on the main layer and mask out an area again. 

Set the Thickness this time to .0250. Hit Extract. 

You can also click on the Eyeballs in the SubTools menu to hide layers. In the Mask menu hit Clear to remove all masking.

Let's mask out and extract some hair. 

If you want to change the name of a layer, hit the Rename button in SubTools. 

If you want to add geometry to the model without extracting, hit the Append button in SubTools and choose a readymade tool or one you have created. For the circle layer I then pressed Make PolyMesh3D in Tools to make it a tool and lost all my model so beware. (The original model was already a tool that was saved so I didn't lose that.)

So I reapplied a mask and extracted it.  

With the extracted layer selected, I clicked on GrpSplit and split the extract up into pieces and into separate layers. I hope that helped to introduce you to some aspects of Extract. 

Download the original source files from this tutorial in Zip format Here




Copyright (c) 2007, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved