Substance Painter Stencil

After I Submitted my homework I started to play around the stencil because I wanted to add some picture patterns onto this helmet instead of just keeping it as a solid color model. I browsed all the provided stencil there are, and I wonder if I could make my own stencil - I found out yes I could! (=^0^=) 

I checked the substance youtube tutorial and it says it was simply made in Photoshop as PSD and import it as image (File -> import image into project). I wonder if I could import the image as .psd, or .ai since I like making the pattern in illustrator. It turned out that only certain format can be imported such as PNG, JPEG. But not psd or ai. So I made the stencil image in Illustrator, then save it as PNG, then imported into painter. 

One more thing I found out was when making the stencil:

1) It doesn't matter if it's color or black and white, because after imported into painter, it automatically change it into grey scale. If you want to have colors on it, you have to customize the brush and paint over the stencil. 

2) When making the stencil, make sure the background is BLACK, and stencil image is WHITE! I tried transparent background with white image, or white background with black image, them imported them, it didn't work out. It's like masked out the image itself and when you paint you are painting OUTSIDE of the image shape, but not IN the image shape itself. 

Wrong stencil size ( it was too full filled the frame ).

Wrong stencil background ( the background is actually transparent, in this grey blog is shows grey)

RIGHT DESIGN ( Black background, smaller sized pattern, pattern color white ).

3) When making the stencil, make sure to resize the pattern much smaller than the background. So when imported the image the stencil will be tiled as repeated but there will be distance between each repeated image. If when making the pattern and it's filled the entire background, then there will be no space in between the tiled stencil in painter which makes painting over the shape really difficult.

But basically if I want to add very beautiful and more complicated colored pattern onto the model, I either have to use brush to hand paint them directly on the model, or use stencil shape then paint different colors within the stencil. 

Not sure how customized pattern can work out in Designer. 

Also, seems there is no way to export the 3D viewer as an image!!!! You can only export all the channels into different maps. So in order to have a view shot I have to use the Print screen button.... (=@_@=) Really????? 

I haven't figure out how to make color changes AFTER the stencil paint over is done. I tried different places in the software but doesn't seem like they provide any option to change the color??? Or maybe I should try to add a mask to change the stencil layer itself. I will keep exploring the possibilities. It's really fun! :)