Table of contents
1.
Introduction
2.
Mask
2.1.
Elements of Editing
2.2.
Selection Masking
2.2.1.
Advantages of Select Masking
2.3.
Vertex Selection Masking
2.4.
Face Selection Masking
3.
Hide
3.1.
Hide or Unhide Faces
3.2.
Hide or Unhide Vertices
3.3.
The Clipping Border
4.
Frequently Asked Questions
4.1.
Can Blender be used as a CAD programme?
4.2.
Is a lot of RAM required for Blender?
4.3.
Can we use Blender without knowing how to code?
5.
Conclusion
Last Updated: Mar 27, 2024

Hiding and Masking in Blender

Career growth poll
Do you think IIT Guwahati certified course can help you in your career?

Introduction

Have you wondered what is behind a Ninja’s mask? How do Ninjas blend in or hide when on missions? Today we will learn how to hide and mask in a blender. It is an important art if you wanna be a great Ninja. 

After entering a sculpt mode in Blender, we find the hide and mask modes. They have great uses too. Areas may be hidden beneath mesh or be too near to other elements while sculpting. It is helpful to isolate areas of a mesh to sculpt when working through these. It can be achieved by either concealing parts of the mesh completely or masking areas that cannot get sculpted on. Let's check into these.

Hiding and Masking in Blender

Mask

Masking is used in Blender to regulate which mesh sections are modified by sculpting.

Plain Ninja Blender Model

We can see our simple Ninja above. This one is untouched. However, we have another ninja below. This Ninja has only some parts of it coloured. It is because the Black part is masked.
 

Masked Parts of the Ninja Model Have not been affected

Brush: To modify the mask, go to the Brush panel and pick the Mask Brush.

Editing: Masks can be changed or edited throughout the entire model.

Elements of Editing

Let us have a look into the elements of this.

Invert Mask: By hitting "Ctrl+I", we may invert our masked portion. It inverts an already existing mask.

Fill Mask: Fills the entire mask with the value 1.

Clear Mask: This is accessed using the shortcut "Alt+M." It Fills the mask with a value of 0. It completely removes the mask data layer from the mesh. At the same time, it does not give a significant gain. It can speed up sculpting if the mask is no more getting utilised.

Box Mask: This gets accessed through the keyboard shortcut "B". It functions similarly to the Box Select tool. It results in the creation of a rectangular mask zone. To clear the mask of the specified location, hold Shift.

Lasso Mask: The combination of "Shift+Ctrl+LMB" activates the Lasso Mask. It is similar to the Lasso Select tool in that it may be used to generate a free-form mask. In order to clean the Lasso Mask tool of the areas, invert the mask, put the Lasso Mask, and thereafter invert the mask again.

Selection Masking

When working with complicated geometry, it can be difficult to paint on all vertices in Weight Paint Mode. 

Weight Paint Mode option.

Assume we simply want to paint on a small portion of the mesh and leave the rest alone. Selection masking comes into play here. When this mode is activated, a brush will only paint on the vertices or faces that have got selected. The option is accessible from the 3D View's header. The following icons are circled in red:

Selection Masking Options

Advantages of Select Masking

The Select Masking mode has the following advantages over Weight Paint Mode:

  • Even when modifiers are activated, the original mesh borders are drawn.
  • We can confine painting to the vertices of specified faces by selecting them.

Vertex Selection Masking

We can select one or more vertices in this mode and then paint exclusively on the selection. Unintentional alterations are prevented for all unselected vertices.

Vertex Selection masking of the element in Blender.

We can see in the example above that the glove has been selected under Vertex Selection masking.

Face Selection Masking

The Face Selection masking lets us choose faces and confine the weight paint tool to specific faces, quite similar to Vertex selection masking.

Model selected under Face Selection masking.in Blender

We can see in the example above that the Ninja model above has been selected under Face Selection masking.

Hide

In "Sculpt" Mode, we can hide parts of the mesh to enhance viewport performance and access parts of the mesh that would otherwise not be possible to access. It happens due to other parts obscuring them.

The hidden faces are not sculptable. Hiding is available in both Edit and Sculpt Mode. It means that hiding and unhiding in one mode impacts the other.

Hide Bounding Box: We accomplish this by using the "H" key. Its purpose is to conceal a portion of a mesh within the selection. This tool functions similarly to the Box Select tool.

Unhide Bounding Box: We find it by pressing "Shift+H". It gets used to reveal a hidden mesh element within the selection.

Show All: Show All gets activated by the keyboard shortcut "Alt+H". It shows all of the hidden elements or parts.

Hide Masked: All masked vertices get hidden with this.

Hide or Unhide Faces

We can also use the keyboard Shortcut "H" to conceal chosen faces in Edit Mode, then colour on the rest visible faces, and finally use "Alt+H" to unhide the hidden faces.

Hide or Unhide Vertices

In the vertex mask selection mode, we cannot directly hide chosen faces. We can, however, use a trick:

  1. Go to the Face selection mask mode first.
  2. Choose the regions we want to conceal, and then conceal the faces, as we have explained above.
  3. Return to Vertex Selection mask mode.

The vertices of the hidden Faces now get hidden.

The Clipping Border

The Clipping Border can be used to further limit the paint area. Drag a rectangle area with Alt-B and LMB. As the region of interest, the specified area will be "carved out." The remainder of the 3D View is concealed.

The Clipping Border serves to pick out interesting sections of the image for local painting.

Clipped out Element in Blender

We can see that the hand we're looking at has been clipped or cut out.

By hitting Alt-B a second time, we can make the full mesh visible again.

This clipping is respected by all weight paint tools that use the View, including border select, weight gradient, and, of course, brush strokes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Blender be used as a CAD programme?

Blender is not a CAD programme. CAD software depends heavily on curve modelling, whereas Blender relies heavily on polygon modelling. CAD models are collections of mathematically defined shapes, whereas Blender models are collections of points connected by edges and faces.

Is a lot of RAM required for Blender?

Blender consumes more RAM than many other software solutions, yet this results in maximum efficiency inside the software's operations by reducing data loss and enhancing stability. Although 4GB is the bare minimum, users should have 8GB to 16GB RAM for optimal performance.

Can we use Blender without knowing how to code?

To learn how to use Blender 3D, we do not need any coding knowledge. All of Blender's capabilities get powered by the Python visual scripting language. Artists employ tools that can be activated with the click of a button or a simple hotkey instead of code.

Conclusion

In the article, we found out about hiding and masking in Blender. We saw the shortcuts we can use to access them. The article also explained different types of masking. 

Refer to our courses and explore Coding Ninjas Studio to find more exciting stuff. You can also look into the interview experiences and solve different problems. Look into our Guided paths, test series, libraries and resources to know more.

Thank You

Happy Coding!

Live masterclass