Help - Smooth & View Control

[jscarr]

Hi All,

First congrats to Pixologic -- very nice work on Z2.

A few questions:

1) When editing a 3D object and holding Shift to "smooth" Z2 appears to disregard the Z Intensity setting and smooths at some constant (and undesirable) value. Turning off "Zadd" makes no difference. This doesn't seem like it should be the case... are we left without any control over the smoothing strength?

2) What is the keyboard shortcut to pan the canvas? Did anyone notice when using a tablet if you have to press the Move button and drag right you're off the tablet already? The "." only seems to center the view...

3) Where's the Search function in the Help file? And why isn't there a scroll bar to get through the pages of topics?

4) How do we drag menu items to the custom toolbars? For instance, how can Tool\Geometry\Divide be added to a floating tool palette?

5) No customizable keyboard shortcuts?


Thanks for your help!
-Joe

[Polaris30]

2) What is the keyboard shortcut to pan the canvas? Did anyone notice when using a tablet if you have to press the Move button and drag right you're off the tablet already? The "." only seems to center the view...


spacebar :)

5) No customizable keyboard shortcuts?


I dont know, but I hope so... I know If you hold Shift and click on a transform tool it will make it so when you press shift it dose the alternat function insed of smooth...

[Polaris30]

also on american keyboards the ~ key will shift the layer, wich is nice for makeing seamless textures

[jscarr]

Thanks Polaris, but I guess I should have given more info regarding #2...

Let's say you zoom in on a model and now want to "Move" the view (e.g. pan the view). Spacebar pans the entire canvas... how do we pan just the contents while zoomed in?

Thanks for the bonus tip, too. ;)

[skycastle]

There is a hand icon that should be on the
right border of your screen. Click and drag this.

For Smooth brush settings goto the Transform menu and select the Smooth brush
button while in edit mode. After selecting
the change the Zintensity to whatever setting you like ( Mid screen ). Now, when
you press shift your smooth brush will use
the intensity you previously set. Any brush can be assigned to the shift key. While in the transform menu hold shift down for a few seconds while your mouse is over the desired brush.

[jscarr]

Thanks, Skycastle, but I'm afraid you must have missed some details of what's happening...


1) "Moving"

Create a 3D primitive
switch to Edit mode
use the "Scale" tool on the right to zoom in
now use the "Move" tool to pan the view

If you're using a Wacom and want to pan to the right you won't get far - your stylus goes off the tablet too quick.

You can customize the UI and place the Move tool elsewhere on-screen, but wouldn't it be better to have keyboard shortcuts for this stuff?

Aren't there customizable keyboard shortcuts?


2) "Smoothing"

I see what you mean. Sadly, that's a clunky way of implementing it. It would be better to have the Shift-tool variant use whatever current Zintensity setting is there. This way you could modify it quickly without having to go back into the menu, select Smooth and then change the intensity.

Thanks for the info....

[aurick]

Every transform brush has an independent Z Intensity. This was deliberate and actually makes the overall workflow easier. Some brushes need a lower Z Intensity than others, and it would become very awkward very quickly to have to change intensities every time you change brushes.

In question 2 you asked about panning the canvas. What you're really looking for is how to move the model. Press and hold the Alt key to move the model. If you release the Alt key after clicking on the canvas and before you begin your drag, that is the shortcut for scaling the model. (In other words, the Alt key is the shortcut for both moving and scaling, as well as for toggling between Zadd and Zsub).

3) The Help system is based upon ZScript technology. There are no commands in the ZScript language for scroll bars. There were also technical reasons why a search function was not practical to implement.

4) Hold down the Ctrl key to drag an element onto the shelf or canvas. Not all elements can be placed there, though, because some interface items simply do not exist when ZBrush is first launched. They are only created when the appropriate other element is selected. The Divide button is one such element, and so cannot be placed on the shelf. I would recommend putting the Tool palette in one of your trays (to the right or left of the interface) and saving that as a custom configuration for modeling (Preferences>Config>Save Ui).

5) Customizeable keyboard shortcuts would also run the risk of conflicting with plugins. It is possible to change some shortcuts through the use of ZScripts, however.

[jscarr]

Thanks, Matthew!

Moving the model - Alt works great, thank-you! (I should have checked the Shortcuts PDF earlier!)

Help System - clearly it works well with Zscripts. Search is handy as I'm sure you'd agree. A balancing act, no doubt.

Keyboard Shortcuts - understandable, but would be nice to have. True customization allows freedom and speed. I'll check out ZScripting them, thanks.

I'd have to argue otherwise on the Smoothing ZIntensity. Having to navigate through menus to switch the mode to Smooth in order to affect it's ZIntensity is nowhere near as fast as holding Shift to switch to the Smooth tool and then adjusting the ZIntensity slider at the top. I'll submit a Wishlist item...


Thanks again for clearing those up. Z2 is a solid app and the 3D features kick ass. Nice work!

-Joe

[jscarr]

cool, at least we can add the Std and Smooth toolbars to the menu... faster to change ZIntensity...

thanks ;)