Sketches and Zbrush?

[Hawktoey]

Okay I am a newbie! I have gone through a lot of the threads here, and this keeps popping up and now it's bugging me so I must ask it.
There is a lot of reference to doing sketches prior to your modeling in Z. My questions is this...
Do you somehow load the sketch in Z for reference (like a BG image), or is it sitting on the desk so you can refer to it? Like when I model a car in Max, I load the reference sketches onto a plane and model it. Can this (has this) be done in Z?

[aurick]

There are two ways that it can be done, but only with the commercial version.

One is to import the sketch as a texture and then fill the layer with it or apply it to a plane.

The other way is to use QuadQuick (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=008417)

[Jaycephus]

Hi,

As Aurick has said, you have to have the full version to be able to import a sketch or reference photo. Once a sketch is imported, you can use this Fit or Fill (http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200305/user_file-1053090605gkv.zip) zscript to easily place the sketch free of distortion on a layer.

With the Demo version, you can also sketch (or trace a photo if you have a tablet) on a layer using the 2D brushes in ZBrush, and model on top of (or in front of) the sketch. With the demo, the sketch document can be saved and re-opened, and a new model begun, the limitation being that the model must be completed and utilized before exiting the demo version of ZBrush. However, for a complex scene, you could do a model, place it on a layer according to what you have planned in your sketch, and then save and exit ZBrush. Later, you can open the document, and resume creating additional models for the scene, placing (snap-shotting) them in the scene layer(s). So even with the demo, a sketch could help with the composition of a complex scene. And if you place the models on different layers, you can easily edit the texturing of the models even after they have been turned into pixols by using the various 2 and 2.5D tools.

[Frenchy Pilou]

You have also a tricky way for the demo user :)
Draw you model on a very translucent tracing paper and stick it on the monitor !
Rustic but effective :cool:
Pilou