alpha masking in external file

Development Asset Creation
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1

Hi! Can anyone give me a step-by-step gide for masking out unwanted areas to the external file?

What about the file naming conventions and does the info need to be in RGB or in Alpha of the external file?

Why the external file?

Sometimes I have a need of reexporting raws with different setup for calc and for texturing, but I whant to make alpha only once.

Looking forward to hear anyone :slight_smile:

2

Hello dear user,
I would like to first mention it is not always good to mask your images. Sometimes the background is very useful for alignment.
Although, if you really want to, then you can do so in the RGB channels of the file with a black, white or any solid color. As solid color cannot get recognized as points in space. 

3

Thanks for the reply.
Is there any naming conventions for the mask file so the program could recognize the mask?
For example
DSG5467.jpg
DSG5467_mask.jpg

4

If you want to use the yourself created mask as a separate file recognised by RC then it should also have the information in Alpha channel. First I thought you wanted to mask the source files directly.

RealityCapture can automatically detect these types of layers:

.geometry (equals to image/folder with no layer extension)
.mask
.labels
.depth
.textureXX
.texture (equals to .texture1 and .texture01)

NOTE: Instead of dots (.) in the folder names, you can also use one of these symbols: _ @ # and !. For example: _texture, @texture, #texture or !texture.

The mask in your case should look as DSG5467.jpg.mask.png

5

Wow, thanks, that’s the clearest answer I’ve got so far! Will try it a little later.
A mask has to be *.png only?

6

Pleasure is mine. I don’t think it has to be, but I would recommend you to use it as such, due to .png having low file size and providing the transparency.

7

Might be useful for people to note here that the separate mask files are useful for masking out areas that you don’t want used to align or create a mesh but only alpha in the aligned photo masks out texturing. I do wish this were one of the drop down options for the external files.

8

Hi Greg,

Please can you clarify the functionality you would like, where would this drop down be?, and what options would you like in it? I will then add this as a feature request.

9

I would like the drop down from the image info panel that lists how the masks and how they will be used. currently they can be used for alignment and meshing, I would like it if we could add texturing as an option. Right now if I use geo to generate masks that I want to use for texturing then I have to pipe those masks into alpha in all the images which is a hassle.

10

Hi Greg,

Thank you for the clarification, I have created a new feature request. If anybody else would like this functionality, please comment below and all names added to the feature request will increase the priority.

11

I would also need this feature. Is there a workaround right now? I have the right masks already as black and white images. but i need them to also mask out these areas while texturing. 

12

Hi MoritzWi, your vote was added to this feature request.

13

Hi I need this feature too,
According to my tests, alpha channels in the images (in texture layer) are now meaningless for generating textures?
Thank you,

14

Hi mistral_Y, your vote was added to this feature request.

15

Please add my vote to this request as well. Thank you

16

Dear Gianni Ritschard, your vote was added to our feature request database.