Make Any Image a Brush Alpha | Blender 2.8

Grant's Character Course discount link: www.gamedev.tv/p/blender-char...
Grant’s Drawing course discount link: www.gamedev.tv/p/complete-dra...
In this series I will be looking at how you can add minor details to your sculpts quickly and easily using texture brushes.
You can find the first video in the description and there's a card in the corner
The second video looks at how you can add these to your brushes and the 3rd will show you how you can create your own
This video is all about using any image as an alpha or texture
You can find this course and other free courses like this on gabbitt.co.uk and do ask any questions in the comments below and i will get back to you. Alternatively you can go to the discord server / discord and ask questions there or just chat and may be join in some of the competitions
Video 1 of the series - • 5 Great Free Texture S...
Video 2 of the series - • How to Use Alphas/Text...
John Mervins video
• Quick Tip: How to Make...
Matreialize
www.boundingboxsoftware.com/ma...
quick start guide for materialize
• Materialize - Quick St...
recommended graphics tablet: bit.ly/2RvxFk7
It's from GearBest
I use a graphics tablet to paint with and I can recommend this one for the price and responsiveness it's probably the cheapest of that quality as well.
Learn the basics with this playlist:
• Blender Basics - low p...
Facebook: / gabbittmedia
Twitter: / grantabbitt
Sketchfab : sketchfab.com/grant.abbitt
www.patreon.com/gabbitt
Useful texture site (paid)
www.environment-textures.com/

[@mysticbeastdraws2067]

this is amazing. thank you for explaining it so simply, it worked first try, that never happens.

[@Riprazor]

I just stumbled upon this after trying to accomplish (somewhat successfully) the exact same thing in Gimp using gradients and a guassian blur. This is considerably easier and produces better results! Thanks again Grant, will be joining your patreon group given how your content is always just so good!

[@brandingdesignpro]

Incredibly helpful content on the blender alpha brush settings and use. There's not enough content or instruction tutorials on this tool that's easy to find. A couple, but not as much as low poly modeling. Thank you so much for this!

[@MoriAnimations]

Thanks Grant! I'd been painstakingly hand drawing cracks and bumps into rocky surfaces for hours and wondered if this was possible. Time saver! Very well explained. Thanks mate.

[@prizmaetkisiyogavekisiselg3572]

You are a life saver, my man ! :) I was looking for that exactly. Finely summarized the process. Thank you a lot :)

[@KUBE.archvis]

This is way easier than I thought! I've put off making my own brushes because I thought it was going to be way outside the confines of my current skill level.

[@caturindrasukmana7673]

Dude you're the most breathtaking blender tutor. I like how did you explain your videos clear as crystal. I am so glad found your channel. Keep working dude :)

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@ten-ub4xd]

Breathtaking, very helpful

[@Hejirah]

thank you so much for this tutorial and the Materialize app, so much fun!

[@Antoinette737]

Thank you for sharing your GREAT explaining.

[@juggalojack13]

I think that's the best, fastest thing I've ever learned on Blender that has an insanely huge impact. Thank you so much

[@banjaracartoon]

Thank You Grant. I am a newbie and your videos are helping me to improve my skills day by day.

[@grabbitt]

Good to hear :)

[@IndustrialPlasticsNanaimo]

Awesome tutorial! Thank you Grant. Also love being told of new software. Cheers :-)

[@pablogomez3308]

I've learned what an brush alpha is today! Thanks!!

[@chuctanundaspiderbone5407]

Excellent, thanks. I've been looking for this.

[@tj-uq4yz]

This is amazing! Great tutorial

[@yannterrer]

One of my first Blender tutorial and this tuto still help me! very clear and revelant explaination. Thank you so Much;)

[@vyrusnation4053]

Materialize has saved me soooooo much time making all the different maps from the diffuse map. I made a custom wood grain texture and then loaded it into materialize and was easily able to make my displacement, normal, metallic, roughness and Ambient Occlusion maps.

[@grabbitt]

Yes it's really great :)

[@np5322]

Super helpful man. Love your channel!

[@jessicabernstein6185]

Wow! You know everything, thank you for this great tutorial, xxx jess

[@Cadforcam]

Nicely explained and very useful as usual. I already knew materialize and can tell is amazing for a free program, hopefully they will add something like that to blender in the future.

[@grabbitt]

Yes hopefully :)

[@cocasurfboards]

Thank you so much man! ❤🎮 Keep always making these incredible tutos! ❤🎮💡

[@grabbitt]

Thanks 😃

[@IPASAustralia]

Excellent video. You are fast, yet thorough so you don't waste my time like others do. Thank you and you've just got yourself another subscriber.

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@MaiaCoimbra]

Thanks man i was needed that tutorial

[@RyanKingArt]

Very helpful thanks!

[@epelfeld]

Thank you so much for this!

[@SleepyMatt-zzz]

I went to the beach to try it out, and it really works! Tricky thing is the get the lighting down for the images, but it is certainly better than spending a lot of time looking for free brushes.

[@grabbitt]

yes go on a grey day and it helps loads :)

[@artsquirrel]

Thanks for this video Grant, very helpful.

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@josephvanwyk2088]

Thanks, such an important video this. Something I always wanted to know.

[@audunaarseth6237]

Great tutorial, thanks!

[@yezzzsir]

Thanks Grant. Really useful series.

[@grabbitt]

thanks

[@Sophistry0001]

Oh man that's incredible. Being able to use any high quality height map is fucking rad. You, sir, are criminally under rated.

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@rufuscoppertop330]

I'm finding that I have to pause and explore the menus to find out how you're doing things that you're doing but it's a really valuable tute. Thanks for putting it up.

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@nottinghasm]

I actually wanted to do this in Blender 2.79 a couple of weeks ago but Googling didn't help as I didn't know the correct terminology for my search, so I was grateful for the tutorial. Helpful, informative and well-paced as ever, thank you.

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@makentoarts986]

amazing, thank you so much!

[@nirmalendukhan5392]

You are always the best, very helpful video.

[@grabbitt]

Thanks

[@ArbitraryOnslaught]

Tip: Also you can adjust Auto smooth under Stroke to refine the look

[@tcheadriano]

Awesome!!! Thanks!!

[@an24gaming88]

This is so wrong channel I discovered sir..... Thank you a lottttttttttttt😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

[@raykid1712]

you are amazing u are the best blender teacher

[@dalajlampa1170]

I come to learn stuff I leave as if I was in a spa. Calm, straight to the point, amazing teacher. As always great tut! 5 stars

[@vazak11]

Very helpful, thanks!

[@grabbitt]

thanks :)

That was great mate (Y) I don't know why but to create somethings in 2.8 is easier than the old version of Blender. We can reach easly the menus. Thanks for the video.

[@grabbitt]

Yes I agree

[@kingkeyboard4556]

@@grabbitt found it

[@lylewyant3356]

Since I'm a newbi, I don't think I am ready for that one yet, but it is nice to know something like that is available

[@josephlobb2216]

3:03 Supertexture Node also works for this, if your computer is (like mine) incompatible with Windows software (materialize)

[@shubham5792]

Please make more videos on this. Btw the video is very much helpful.

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :) What would you like to see and learn about?

[@shubham5792]

Rock models like of blender guru but without using rock essentials.

[@wildhearts9006]

nice. thanks for this

[@TheSebledingue]

Thank you so much

[@bagboybrown]

You can certainly learn things from Mr. Abbitt, but he's so mellow that I often put him on when I'm going to sleep. XD

[@Ruddy761]

Hi Grant! Another great tutorial. I have good news for people running Linux but still wish to use Materialize, since it does not have a Linux native version (yet). I managed to get it to run fine under Wine in Linux, just remember to install Microsoft Visual C++ runtime 2013 using Winetricks. (not the microsoft installer exe) Also install the "all fonts option" in winetricks or else you wont see any of the fonts in the UI. Thats it! Have fun with Materialize on Linux!

[@grabbitt]

nice work well done :)

[@exploringbiblicalendtimes779]

thanks brilliant

[@harryboteler5332]

Hi Grant, I love this series - so easy and clear to follow. Is there an equivalent program to Materialize for Mac OS that you can recommend?

[@grabbitt]

crazy bump might work for you?

[@harryboteler5332]

Thanks for that. Works well and looks fairly straightforward to use. @@grabbitt

[@rken100]

great tutorial!!! is this the same process for making grease pencil texture brushes??

[@grabbitt]

Haven't used it much yet. Plan on doing that more next year

[@rhomis]

I got the tutorial on a 60" screen, and Blender on the desktop screen, and when I increased that resolution up 5X everything froze. Other than that, GREAT Tutorial.

[@bes5164]

Well, this is what I call a game changer :O

[@indrakomara6966]

thank you...

[@activemotionpictures]

Thank you for sharing. How many times did you subdivided the sphere to get that kind of result? You didn´t use dyntopo so what´s the mesh resolution? Thanks. Great video.

[@grabbitt]

Ctrl 5 so 5 subdivisions. Apply that. Then add multires at 3 subs to start

[@activemotionpictures]

@@grabbitt 5! ok. well, thanks. sure thing.

[@grabbitt]

@@activemotionpictures sorry meant to say that was with the default cube

[@lifeisbeautiful5998]

This is great God 🙏🙌👏 like toutorial

[@xrok1]

thank you. so can this be exported for 3d printing and the texture will show up on the exported model?

[@grabbitt]

yes

[@Bob-321]

I recommend Krita over Gimp. Its also free to use.

[@grabbitt]

I think Krita is better at art type stuff but I imagine Gimp is better for image manipulation

[@rama1234ish]

Is there a way to make it so that the brush only affects the selected vertices of an object? I have an outline of a hand, and I want to make it look like an inflated glove. I need to use a brush to "puff it up", but I don't want the brush to affect the outline of the hand.

[@TheStickofWar]

anyone reading this in a few years time, it is the job for a mask.

[@LLuki105]

You are my master... :)

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@parkerdarrencrandell1540]

Is there any way to apply color as poly paint or texture paint from the same image at the same time?

[@grabbitt]

not that i know of. It would be lovely though :)

[@smaplessmap5355]

Anyway to define an alpha mid grey that darker parts push into and light parts pop out the surface?

[@karlmoore1837]

Thanks for the video, it has helped me quickly surface texture I had started in Blender, as my first full project in Blender. I was wondering, what could be done (or should be done) if a texture added starts showing "borders" as well as the texture on the surface of the sculpt? Is this a size, quality of image or other issue I don't know about? Thanks.

[@grabbitt]

Change your brush curve

[@sarahluv6228]

I know its pretty old, but this seems to be the video that helped me the most. Is this similar to making a texture paint brush ?

[@grabbitt]

Yes

[@JohnMervinChocolateThunder]

Thanks for the shoutout! just saw this lol

[@grabbitt]

no problem

[@Justathereptile]

How did you make a new panel? I tried the same way you did but no luck.

[@grabbitt]

just grab the corner maybe you have a bug

[@dragonknight1297]

so, is it safe to say, what can be done instead in the course of battling the residue effect, is to make initial height map better quality, then in photo editing app blur it slightly more than you did?

[@grabbitt]

Yes exactly I probably should have made that a bit clearer

[@zevac]

1:32 bruh

[@theoldsarcasticpineapple]

Imagine

[@josephlobb2216]

@@theoldsarcasticpineapple IKR?!? What computer he using? Skynet?? F.R.I.D.A.Y. OS?

[@theoldsarcasticpineapple]

@@josephlobb2216 he is using the earth as his computer

[@sandragreaney2464]

Hi Grant, thank you for your videos. Is there a MAC alternative to Materialize? Cheers.

[@grabbitt]

I dont know sorry

[@sandragreaney2464]

@@grabbitt thanks for replying anyway. Cheers :)

[@pdhm7521]

@@sandragreaney2464 Sorry for the delay, but you can use CrazyBump

[@haroldd5035]

I’m looking for something that will allow me to add patterns and textures to my models for 3D printing. Will these textures export in an stl?

[@grabbitt]

yes on very high poly meshes

[@sp1011]

How can a texture be added to a flat plane using an anchored brush? Do you have a video on this?

[@grabbitt]

it's exactly the same but it must have enough faces to make the topology

[@pianoneko9279]

Can the brush also be used as a texture within the texture painting tab in Blender as well?

[@grabbitt]

not sure what you are asking but yes i talk about this in stencils

[@jonathansgarden9128]

This looks great! Unfortunately my windows PC is crap. My Mac is far superior. I guess I'll have to switch between the two for the results I need

[@ulus2109]

Can i use the same method for texture painting?

[@grabbitt]

i've not actually tried. Good question

[@EL_N0IR_2201]

i have a question about materialize, how do i install properly, it seems like just extracting activates it, is it ok too extract it then drag it too my desktop and open it from there fine? its a weird install I'm confused. also I'm kind of worried about the 8bit photo's thing, i only have affinity photo do you think i can use affinity too upscale 8bit too 32 bit like you said? other than that really helpful video thank you.

[@grabbitt]

It's been a while since I've used it so I'm not sure

[@ZacharyAghaizu]

Any alternative to materialise for Mac?

[@grabbitt]

not sure :(

[@ProMontreal]

I've always wondered. Is there a way to downscale the brush texture itself. Say I want a pore texture, but when I'm pulling the brush out, it appears super big when I want the pores to be small. Is there anyway to make that happen?

[@grabbitt]

Kind of I guess. But ti's better to have a separate alpha texture

[@seanchoy236]

Got stuck at 1:42 how exactly do you pull out another brush tab? Also, two questions: Does doing this create a duplicate copy of the draw brush, would I need to cycle through textures if I wanted to switch to a different one? Say if the surface of where I want to apply the texture is curved, would said texture follow the curvature? EDIT: got it to work, but is there a way to make the texture continuous rather than doing it one spot by one spot?

[@prizmaetkisiyogavekisiselg3572]

Is that method applicable to sculpting human hair and giving fine details? And what can you suggest for creating the material and texture for hair ? Is there an easy way such as this approach? I currently use stencil and try to mimick the natural flow of textures via bumps in shader mode of blender. But couldn't get natural looking results.

[@grabbitt]

Very tough to sculpt hair really

[@SlyNine]

I wonder if we could sculpt and paint a PBR at the same time. It could really give a connected look to the surface.

[@grabbitt]

yes it would be helpful. I dont think there is a way yet but we are probably not far of :)

[@SlyNine]

@@grabbitt It seemed simple when I first posted that. But the more I thought about it the bigger my headache got.

[@SlyNine]

@@grabbitt Also thanks for the videos. I plan on trying my hand at sculpting. I seem to get a bit of a mental block trying to think of a basic structure or shape. Something that would be a nice shape to add details too.

[@grabbitt]

@@SlyNine start with simple creatures like a fish :) then add the scales :)

[@cgabyssinia7966]

Hello Grant, is it possible to make a normal map image as a brush alpha in Blender? thanks :)

[@grabbitt]

Yes

[@Bob-321]

what happens if you start with a 32 bit image before you use materialize? Does the generated image stay at 32 bits?

[@grabbitt]

Good question - not idea

[@KevinFeegers]

Hello Grant, first of all thank you for the good tutorial. I have a little problem, maybe you can help me. As soon as I go to "Multires" and then Subdivde, then square edges become round. Can I somehow prevent that they become round? I have built a column, and would like to decorate it this way, but now it is no longer a column, but an egg-like object. :D

[@grabbitt]

Choose simple as sub division method

[@_casg]

Can I do this with hard surfaces?

[@grabbitt]

Yes with the right amount of faces

[@ten-ub4xd]

are you ever meant to apply the multires mod? or is it best just to never apply it - my mac runs very slow when i use it, so scared to crash and lose it all if i apply it, great content brother! thank you

[@grabbitt]

There is no reason to apply it.

[@Hejirah]

one question; can I rotate the alpha in blender sculpt mode?

[@grabbitt]

If you put it on random yes

[@LaFaisal]

Hello Quick question ❓ What you think about Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 STF GM OSS Lens is good for take pictures and Creating Texture? My camera is A7R III.

[@grabbitt]

Yes that will be excellent :)

[@LaFaisal]

@@grabbitt Thank you 🙏🏻🌹

[@hicham171]

If im making a game asset or character ,is it better to us it while sculpting or after retopo ?

[@grabbitt]

You use this before most of the time

[@hicham171]

@@grabbitt thanks !!!✌

[@eliasmedina9060]

Could I do this with scales on a dinosaur?

[@grabbitt]

yes

[@diime02]

hey, another amazing video! I was wondering if you have time and knowlege, could you try to recreate any scene from spider man into the spider verse, I especially liked the artstyle of the movie, so maybe someone like you can replicate it in blender, just trying to figure out if its possible, much thanks!

[@grabbitt]

The movie looks amazing. I'll look into it a bit and see if i can come up with anything :)

[@Hejirah]

multiresing/subdividing my bust mesh 5 times destroys my pc tho :(

[@jorgem.670]

Before I could do this but now even if I put the texture nothing happens can you help me?

[@grabbitt]

have you got enough verts

[@amanonyoutube9591]

i did not know materialize was a thing until today

[@dontusedontuse8273]

How can one texture paint with a jpg brush with alpha background can't seem to get it to work want to use rake but can't invert the brush

[@grabbitt]

JPEGs don't have alphas

[@dontusedontuse8273]

@@grabbitt sorry mean transparent want to use psd brush in jpeg to import in blender to texture paint but does not work as expected

[@MrVausta]

my PC dies above 1m vertices is there another way use the bumb maps in blender still with high resolution on the detail ?

[@grabbitt]

only painted on as a bump map

[@MrVausta]

@@grabbitt thank u for the quick answer, ill find another way to handle the verts than maybe less detail or something :)

[@rrrjr392]

Why it doesn't working on my blender ver. 2.79??? Can you explain it? Or maybe there's a different way to do on blender ver. 2.79??

[@grabbitt]

pretty mush same method for 2.79. Perhaps it's worth you trying 2.8 :)

[@aybee5908]

Hmmm, Materialize doesn`t let me save any map. Any ideas? Ok got in the moment I wrote this. You have to type in the ending by your own (jpg, png etc)

[@tomslick4023]

Why u resulution is soooo good? :(

[@grabbitt]

use a multiresolution modifier with the mesh