Stencil & Clear

[Peter Wassink]

the Stencil function ignores layer opacity when you use CLR.

it will always CLR through the stencil at 100% no matter what layer opacity you have set.

if you want the CLR working at the layer percentage, you can only do that by merging it, using blendmode erase.
This requires a few more steps but its also not logic to me.
Isn't it logic that when you set a layer as a stencil,
that you control its strength (opacity) by the opacity slider?



image: mask is set to 50% but it Clears at 100%

Screenshot 2020-11-16 124601.png (21.69 KiB) Viewed 5826 times

but when you merge with blendmode erase....:

Screenshot 2020-11-16 124750.png (31.55 KiB) Viewed 5824 times

then it does work:

Screenshot 2020-11-16 124807.png (25.42 KiB) Viewed 5824 times

[slowtiger]

I want to point out that I like to use the stencil with its source layer set to some transparency, or even 0%. If I want to clear something to 50% with a stencil, I use a rectangle fill set to 50% opacity at erase.

[Peter Wassink]

good point. Thanks!

the biggest problem with stencils and masks in tvpaint is finding the simplest way of getting the result you need.
Because there always is more then one.

[slowtiger]

True, and some workflows are not really intuitive. I've found my own solutions so I can work pretty fast in TVP. Stencils are one of its main advantages, I've developed a whole background style around them (starting from writings by John Krikfalusi about Art Lozzi's work for Flintstones).