Slots & Mask

The Slots tab in the Tool Shelf of the 3D View.

Slots

Slots settings.

The combination of images associated with UV maps is called “slots”.

Selecting a Paint Slots or Canvas Image will also display the corresponding image in UV/Image Editors.

Painting Mode

The slot system includes two painting modes:

Image

You can just select an existing image and painting will use the active UV layer for painting.

Canvas Image

Allows you to select the image used as a canvas.

New

Create a new image.

UV Map

Allows you to select the UV layer for painting. (Same as the currently active UV map in the mesh’s UV Maps panel.)

Material

This mode tries to detect the slots from the materials of the mesh.

For the Cycles renderer, all texture images (Image Texture node) on the material’s node tree are added on the slots tab.

Available Paint Slots

A List Views of slots. To activate a certain slot to use it for paint a just LMB click on it.

UV Map

Allows you to select a UV layer for the slot. The UV map selected in the UV Map nodes before an Image Texture will be used. If there is no UV Map nodes or it has a blank value, the active UV map of the mesh (UV Maps panel) will be used.

For Blender Internal, texture paint slots are material texture slots that use images and UV mapping. The UV map that is used during painting is either the assigned on the UV slot of the material texture UV slot, or the active UV layer of the mesh (this is the highlighted UV map under the mesh tab in the properties editor) if no UV map has been assigned. There are a few extra controls:

Add/Remove Texture Paint Slot

A menu that allows the addition of new slots which are added directly on the material.

Blend Type

Same as in the Texture Blending Modes.

Save All Images

Repack (or save if external file) all edited images. Same as in the UV/Image Editor.

Mask

Mask settings.

The mask can be deactivated by the checkbox in the header.

UV Map

Allows you to select the UV layer for the mask image.

Stencil Image

Image used as a mask. See Data-Block Menu.

Visualization

Mask color in the viewport. See Color Picker.

Invert Stencil (black/white icon)

Inverts the mask.