ALPHAMANAGER BETA -PLEASE ADD YOURS!

[s o u t h e r n]

:b3: :b3: SOUTHERNS ALPHA MANAGER :b3: :b3:

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010533638ajl.gif

I thought it was about time I shared my little ALPHA BRUSH UTILITY that I called `AlphaManager`. Based very much along the design layout of Texturemaster it is a little ZScript that I call from my Default ZScript.

My Default ZScript:
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010533820qog.gif
Default.txt and PSD in a 56k ZIP (http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/general/resources/zscripts/zscripts/default.zip)


WHAT IT DOES

AlphaManger is a simple ZScript that resides in a directory with sets of Alpha Brushes. This revision comes with 5 sets of 12 Alpha Brushes :

http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/arrow.gif Set 1: GENERIC
http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/arrow.gif Set 2: GENERIC
http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/arrow.gif Set 3: SHAPES
http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/arrow.gif Set 4: INFLATORS
http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/arrow.gif Set 5: SYMBOLS

The ZScript comes with 60 Alpha Brushes built in and has buttons available to handle 48 of your own making


HOW TO RUN IT

The 1.5 MEG ZIP file unpacks to an impressive 9 MEG (The Alpha Brushes are saved as .BMP`s and as such can be compressed a great deal). Place all the files into a directory in the ZScript folder:

ZBrush123b/ZScripts/SGFXZScripts/ZBrushes/

Go to the ZSCRIPT panel and LOAD the ZBrushloader.txt file from the location you chose to install the files.

It should however run from any directory as long as the files are all kept together. There is a DEFAULT button on the interface that returns you to your default ZScript.

WARNING!!!!! The A1 buttons will give errors (will not find files) if you don`t add your own in the way described. So, if you don`t add any, don`t click them :)


WHAT DO ALL THE BUTTONS DO?

Clear Custom Alpha Brushes : Resets the Alpha Brush panel back to the default Brushes


Default: Return to your Default ZScript

A1 (Four buttons): User definable buttons. Add Alpha Brushes to the ZBrushes Folder with the relevant numbers and file extensions and Alpha Manger will call them in the same way as the files included with the ZScript.

Alpha Set 1-5: 5 Sets of twelve brushes called 12 at a time.

H V R N S: Flip Horizontal, Flip Vertical, Rotate, Negative, Make Stencil.

Samples:
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010533742cxn.jpg

DOWNLOAD AlphaManager.ZIP 1.5 MEG File with 60 Alphas (http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/Alphamanagerbeta.zip)


http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/sig.jpg


09.01.02 EDIT01: In the text file ZBrushloader.txt I missed a `.` in the line alpha-65.bmp
Please add it and re-save the text file to allow your own 65th Alpha to work. Thanks to JJ


09.01.02 EDIT02: I added Kaths to my own and I can`t believe how useful this little thing is :)

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE...ADD YOU FAVORITE ALPHA SETS TO THIS THREAD!!!!!

Upload your Alphas as ZIP files containing 12 images in .PSD or .BMP format. Try to keep the Alphas down around 256x256 unless the are special sizes. you can name the files as you wish but anyone wanting to use them in the AlphaManager with need to follow the rules above eg:

Button A1: alpha61.bmp to alpha 72.bmp
Button A1: alpha73.bmp to alpha 84.bmp
Button A1: alpha85.bmp to alpha 96.bmp
Button A1: alpha97.bmp to alpha 108.bmp

GO for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Alpharize us!!

10.01.02 EDIT03:
DOH! I realised my DefaultZScript wouldn`t work on lower res monitors. This fix lets you go down to 1024x768.
DefaultZScript V1.1 (http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/general/resources/zscripts/defaultv1.1.zip)


12.01.02 EDIT04:
This updated .TXT file now includes four tutorials to help learn about ALPHA BRUSHES. Download the file and overwrite the ZBrushloader.txt file in the Alphamanager directory.
ZBrushloader.txt (http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_file-1010866764ofb.txt)

[dOb]

South, Thank you. Now I'm downloading.

[picsas]

wow you are so talented, and generous too,
Thank you I am downloading right away,
thank you, thank you....... :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :tu:

[rhom]

I think an impressive and very useful tool- can't thankyou enough Glen.I'll be using this one.

[Stonecutter]

Thank you for your generosity Glen!
Between you and Aurick, and Kathy, and Dr.J, it's hard to recognize my interface day-to-day! ;)

[s o u t h e r n]

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010535984xjx.jpg

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010536012rxe.jpg

[Kathy]

Cool!

Thanks South.

I personally inserted your Alpha Manager inside aurick's dashboard.

Nice alphas!

[aurick]

Very nice, indeed! Thank you!

Looks like ZScripts are suddenly coming into their own -- and to very good effect. ZBrush will never be the same!

[upham]

Fan-bloomin-tastic G!
Thanks for shareing your hard work and knowledge with everyone. This wee script will will come in extremly handy, and thanks for the examples! :tu: :tu:
Ups.

[s o u t h e r n]

Thats the cool thing now everyone is writing their own ZScripts. All you have to do is take the bits you want and link to them from your own front panel - very plugin/proprietry/DIY ish. I love it.

[s o u t h e r n]

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010537774axr.jpg

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010537834epp.jpg

[DeeVee]

Thanks glen I am not much into modeling but I can see where this would be quitea useful addition to my ZScripts.

[Nikko]

Gawd, this program is getting more and more awesome all the time! THANK YOU, South!
:tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:

[Muvlo]

Looks great Southern, thanks! Aren't ZScripts awsome?! :D

[drjjwow]

wow southern thanks for taking the time to make this... wow ...a hundred thumbs up buddy
after download :ps I found a boo boo southern.. in the script you need to put a period to load user defined alpha-65.bmp..thats all real simple..great utility southern.. thank you so much..

[s o u t h e r n]

JJ. There are no Alphas above alpha-60.bmp These are for you to add (see EDIT 02).

However, you are right, I missed a `.` in Alpha-65.bmp. Thanks for that buddy. Anyone who can`t do the change mail me and I`ll post the updated .TXT file

DON`T FORGET!!!!! POST ALPHA SETS HERE (TWELVE AT A TIME IF POSSIBLE)

[s o u t h e r n]

Kath: Your brushes fit just fine in my ZScript. Ta.

Glen

[banez]

i got one coming your way tommrow its late and i just found out about it its a kick assss one.
thank for the tip on the load alpha thats all i needed.. :tu:

[drjjwow]

ok southern help me out ok... lately ive been into personalizing my interfaces with my own colors and textures.. and every time i replace your default alphapanel it screws up the whole script... ive made sure that the file heigh and width are the same but it still screws up.. can you help please.

[s o u t h e r n]

If you are adding different sized background images to different ZScripts they will give different results:

tThe [PenMove,-200,20] means from the current position start the next `thing` 200 points backwards and 20 points down. If you move even 1 thing the whole thing is out of place and you need to re-align anything after it.

TIP: Don`t randomly add stuff. Have a plan of your buttons drawn out on paper and stick to it. If you want to move line `one` stuff will move all over.

My suggestion. Build your own DefaultZScript (or use mine or Auricks) with loads of USER DEFINED buttons for later use and stick to it!

Hope this helps. Poset an image of what you mean problem wise.

Glen

[Zoid]

Hi Southern,

I just wanted to thank you for this amazing work. I saw it earlier today but wasn't able to download it until now. I followed your instructions pretty well (I think?) but I'm getting a super freezeup when I hit the AlphaManager button. Perhaps because I'm on a Mac. Any other Mac users out there having this problem? I know I will get much use out of this when I get it to work so thanks again in advance.
Also I love the second render of your surfing robot , Is that the toony material? Awesome stuff :cool:

[juandel]

found no time to install your fantastico script yet, southern, so sorry, Zoid, no experience if that might be trouble for us macusers (which would be arghissimo! as i for sure need a manager to organize things for me and those alphas look :tu: :tu: :tu: to no end). most excellent idea, Glen, and the pix that come with it in this thread are out of this world once more!

- juandel

[s o u t h e r n]

Sorry guys, I don`t own a MAC YET!!!!! so I can`t test it on one.

G

I would be greatful if a MAC user could check it out and ammend the code if needed.

G

[aurick]

I learned the hard way with my ScriptSelector that ZScripts on the Mac can't browse to scripts folders other than the ZBrush root folder. I think that to fix the Mac problem, you're going to have to put everything in the root folder, and write the scripts to call it from there.

[DLee]

Thanks Southern. This is really handy... will be more so when I figure out what to do with alpha's ~G~ Thanks to Kathy's help I was able to add it to Aurick's script selector. Makes a super package.

Thanks to all of you for these nifty add on's and the help offered us Newbies.

[JOHNVQ3]

:) This is just :eek: :eek: :eek: :tu: :tu: :tu: awsome!!!! THANK YOU SOUTHERN..

[picsas]

you is the daddy.

Hey Southern, ive put a link to your web site on mine okay. Thank you for sharing your talents.

Arran :tu:

[PusGhetty]

Another excellent addition to Zbrush! Thanks a million Glen! Brilliant idea!

[s o u t h e r n]

Just in case you missed the updated file.......


12.01.02 EDIT04:
This updated .TXT file now includes four tutorials to help learn about ALPHA BRUSHES. Download the file and overwrite the ZBrushloader.txt file in the `Alphamanager` directory.
ZBrushloader.txt (http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_file-1010866764ofb.txt)

[upham]

Here's a challange...
How about getting the Texture Master, Alpha Manager and Material Pack -ALL- on the bottom of the screen at the same time???
Upham :)

I'll proberly do this myself when I become a ZScript master from Davies upcomming lessons!

[s o u t h e r n]

HI Upham,

If you use my Default ZScript it `CALLS` al the others as needed and then I`ve added buttons to the others to send you back to the default. I`ll show you, hang on.......

[upham]

Cool. I'm using your default script and used Z1 to load Material Pack in the MaterialPack draw but hit a brick wall!
Hangin' on....

Southern, tonight I was thinking about your old picture of the green smokin troll (a really old one) and ended up thinking about the wisps of smoke comming out of the cigerette. I applied my old feather/hair technique to a modified spiral with transparency and came up with this ...
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010908870qdn.jpg
It's just an experiment and needs to be worked on ....

Here's another idea for a new script ..... TOOL MASTER!! I find I'm constantly scrolling back and forth between the size and rotate sliders and wish they could be nice big handy buttons on the bottom of the screen. Since when modeling you use a small document size you could have all sorts of buttons taking up the bottom of the screen.

I'd really like a 90-dregree rotation button in the tool's rotation slider. I'm constantly typing "90" in the rot-xyz slider and wish I could just hit a 90+ or 90- button!

Anyway food for thought.
Upham :)

[s o u t h e r n]

That smoke tool si cool!!!

I`ll have a go at Tool master but I may need advice to put sliders on my Default ZScript.

I hit a problem too. Photoshop is throwing memory errors at startup and re-install won`t help!!!!! I`m sunk.....

[upham]

Hi Glen. Don't sweat the zscript. I'm off to bed on my side of the world. You, on the otherhand will need to spend sometime backing up yourt machine. No need to buy PS6 as I'm sure you'll have the same problems.
Check out ... THIS (http://www.tek-tips.com/gviewthread.cfm/lev2/67/lev3/70/pid/621/qid/27217) thread for some tech-tips on this problem. It could be anything from your date to your antivirus or a Microsoft program.
You *MAY* have to reinstall 2000, which is much easier the second time around! It would be EXTREMLY easy if you had previously made a Disk Image of your C drive made from programs like Nortons Ghost. There are Freeware programs out there like
XXCOPY (http://www.xxcopy.com/) that create images though I haven't used it myself.
Sorry man. Can't keep my eyes open much longer.
Upham :)

[s o u t h e r n]

Upham. Did a Win 2000 re-install. Get some sleep buddy, I`ll catch you later.

Glen.

[s o u t h e r n]

This is how my Z front-end works. As new ZScripts are added I use the user defined buttons.

I canabalize the new ZScript by adding a line of code like this to the very very very bottom of the New ZScript....


[ibutton,"Default"," return to Default ZScript",[fileNameSetNext,"ZScripts/DefaultZScript.txt"][iPress,7427]]


Which gives a button that goes back to the default ZScript.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1010935809slq.jpg

[s o u t h e r n]

ps..I did the ZSCIPT spelling mistake in the JPG to stop rival companies taking our work :) DOH!!!!!!! BAD SPOOLER SUVEN

[juandel]

too :cool: southern!!!!

hmmm, are there any other mac-users out there who managed to get that collectiondeluxe as the default one without getting an error2 complete with z-shutdown upon loading the alphamanager from it (which runs primo as a standalone)? if yes: advice as how to manage things would be much appreciated (i am sure there is a way but too dumb to find it) :mad:

- juandel

[drjjwow]

hey southern your default script looks pretty good however how did you get the material master to load up and work the way it should... ive built my own panel and i have a button to load it, and it loads just fine but sometimes the script wont work,meaning it wont load the material requested... can anybody help with this.. ps. if i selected the script material master by itself i have not problems with ...its only when i load it from my default panel..

[s o u t h e r n]

you need to make sure the `paths` are correct for your machine.

THese lines add buttons to call ZScripts....

[IButton," Alpha Manager ","Get AlphaManager",[fileNameSetNext,"ZScripts/SGFXZScripts/ZBrushes/ZBrushloader.txt"][iPress,7427]]

to get AlphaMaster


[IButton,"MaterialPack","MaterialPack",[fileNameSetNext,"ZScripts/MaterialPack/MaterialPack.txt"][iPress,7427]]

To get MaterialPack

[IButton," Txt-Manager","Get TextureManager",[fileNameSetNext,"ZScripts/SGFXZScripts/TextureManager/TextureManager.txt"][iPress,7427]]

to get my new TextureManager...

Any of these lines of code added to your DefaultZScript will work but ONLY!!!!! if the paths are correct for your System....

Not so sure about the mac though.....

G

[Flycatcher]

I hope Southern does not mind, but I have made a couple of very trivial changes to his Alpha Manager script to bring the syntax up to date with version 1.5. The alpha inversion functions in both the tutorials and the alpha manager itself are now compatible with the new version of ZBrush.

Please note: to save bandwidth, I have NOT included the .PSD file or any of the free alphas in the download, so if you have not previously downloaded the utility, you will first need to download the original version, with or without the alphas, from one of the zips in the first post in this thread.

Simply replace the TXT script file itself in the folder with the new version of ZBrushLoader.txt (http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_file-1032305263yop.txt)

[banez]

should add 1 more Button
[IUnPress,Stencil:Stencil On]

[Rigor_Mortis404]

hi there southern! i wanted to download your alpha manager script today but the link seems to be dead. is there another way to get this great script? thanks in advance

[Erklaerbar]

Hi, this is quite an old post :-) Probably the link is gone in the meantime.
But if youre after an alpha manager, you might want to try this one:

http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=30425

Its a very handy script
Cheers
E.

[whoyaposan]

hi i was wondering if you can put your script on another page because i cannot dowload it, could you please help me with that. thx

[sascha]

Yeah, where is the AlphaManager package? I'm still looking for it.