Hello all, I am finding it really frustrating that in combustion I cannot paint with an underlying layer visible, it seems that the only way to paint over footage is to apply the paint operator to the footage layer, this is not a viable solution in several cases. Is there any way to be able to work on one layer and have the other layers visible in the same viewport? Thanks.
painting with underlying layers visible
same as well as i need to mask area for my upper layer. yess of course i need my underlayer for my ref. Its not appear as i assume it was there. onion skin still not working for my version. 
What you could do is apply Paint as a operator and paint what you need.
When finished with masking create a black big rectangle covering your whole image and put it underneeth all your painting. Now your original footage is not visible anymore.
No import your footage as a new layer again and for ex. stencil it with the first footage layer with only the painting visible. Maybe this helps in some cases!
Hi Guys…
Regarding revealing the BG while painting…
Apply “Paint” operator select it & click on the “Window” menu where we have “Show Reveal Source” option just click on it & u’ll get the opacity dialogue box…where you can define ur opacity as per ur requirement…
I just found another trick here:
Create a composite and import your source-pic. Now apply a Paint-OPERATOR to the whole composite. This way you can even move your source-pic around underneath your painting or switch it on and of. Quite handy. This way you always see your source-pic while painting.
as soon as you’re finished with painting you can copy all your painted objects out of your paint-operator to a real paint-layer.
…and another one, apply your paint op and use the compare feature to fully display whatever is downstream and just paint.
-rayk
I’m sad to discover that not only was the question I wanted to ask already … not answered … but that it was on the front page.
I take it I’m not the only one with this gripe. Quite honestly none of these are acceptable, surely there is a real way to work on a mask and see the final composite at the same time!
(By the way, Onion skin is only for frame to frame comparison, doesn’t do anything for depth comparison.)
Edit: I forgot compare works everywhere in Combustion 4 now. That does actually work with masks. Hoozah!
How to get around Combustion’s Lameass lack of a “Display Top of Stack” button.
- Double click on your paint or mask layer.
- click on the “Toolbar” tab.
- right click on the box with the A in it.
- Select “compare on”
- Below is a drop down box which by default is set to “current”
- Click on it and select “Operator”
- Select the Composite Root in the window that opens.
- There should be a line running down the middle of your screen. Drag it such that the Composite half fills the entire frame.
- Proceed to Paint or Roto or Mask as normal.
!Warning! While in paint mode, the program will assume your canvas and your composite are of the same size. If they are not, the one will be scaled to the size of the other on the view. Example, if you havea 10x10 canvas and a 720x480 scene file, it will assume you’re painting on the 10x10 canvas and everything will be very very very very tiny. Make sure your layers and your composite are of the same dimensions.
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