Make1Mesh - plug-in for Zbrush3

[Game Master 770]

It makes 1 PolyMesh3D, from a Tool with multiple SubTools.
The Sub-D level of each SubTool at the time of activation, is the one that gets used. Also, each extracted SubTool gets polygrouped, so if you were to split the resulting single mesh using "GrpSplit", you will get the same SubTools you had before.


Download Make1Mesh plug-in
http://www.mediabakers.com/files/Make1Mesh.zip

[wolfie]

WoW great plugin game master works a treat :tu: alot easyer than the other method.:)

[Polaris30]

Excellent work!

A much needed expansion,
THank you for doing this for us :):tu:

[marcus_civis]

Great work, thanks! It might be useful to have a warning when the resulting mesh is going to exceed the maximum as set in the Preferences:Mem:MaxPolyPerMesh slider. Interestingly it's possible to exceed the limit without ZBrush complaining but there's presumably a point where it will cause problems. As each subtool can be up to the limit it's very easy to exceed the max when you combine them.

Cheers,

[SamB.]

Very useful, thx Game Master!;)

[Roland Kaiser]

Great stuff man, thanks ! ;)

Roland

[WailingMonkey]

awesome! this could be just the solution I was looking for. :)

thank you for sharing it, Game Master 770!


WailingMonkey

*Edit* You just saved me a ton of anguish and tedium....where do I
email the beer to? ;)

http://img476.imageshack.us/img476/8365/sweeeetit4.th.jpg (http://img476.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sweeeetit4.jpg)

[digit1]

Thanks GameMaster!
Cant belive ZB3 doesnt have a feature to collapse subtools natively :/

[TrapDoor]

Thank you!

TD

[andreseloy]

not sure but in some thread was mentioned something like group tool in counter part of the split group buttom:D
Andreseloy

[Svengali]

Thanks GM,

One or two suggestions for the next release: Why not have the final file name include the word "merged" or something similar, to differentiate it after we run your plugin?

The other thing that might be helpful: offer the option to merge only the visible subtools...

Anyway, excellent work! I'll be using it regularly.

Sven

[vincenzo]

Hey, very nice! Thanks much.

[Coyotes_75]

Like all the other, I want to thank you Game Master 770

[Game Master 770]

Your suggestions for improvement are all good.

EZ - suggested I make polygroups, which I added already in v1.0 :tu: (he tested pre-release)
marcus_civis - sugested testing polygon ceiling, and I'll probably add that, in addition to your new polycount, with the end text.
Svengali - suggested I add the word "merged" to the name, and I agree. At the end or the beginning is prefered??
Svengali - also suggested to do only visible SubTools, and I wanted to do this also, but my tests have not gone well for this. The most consistant way to navigate subtools, are the up/down arrows. Doing so changes visibility of the current tool, and using the scroll bar is tricky. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but this one is tricky.

So next ver will likly have a new name, and polygon count, but not sure about only visible SubTools.
Any more suggestions?

[mayakong]

Wow

Thanks GameMaster!

[marcus_civis]

The most consistant way to navigate subtools, are the up/down arrows. Doing so changes visibility of the current tool, and using the scroll bar is tricky. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but this one is tricky.


Two things:
1. In my view, the visibility of the subtool really has to be specified as whether the Eye icon is on or off. As you observe, the active subtool is always visible, whether the eye icon is on or off. You can test for the active subtool, and add that to the visible subtools but I think it confuses the issue.

2. Whilst tricky the scrollbar is the quickest way to move between subtools. You can get to the top, without affecting the Eye icon, like this:

[VarSet,totalSubTools,[StrExtract,[IGetTitle,Preferences:Misc:SubTools Count],10,256]]
[ISet,Tool:Sub Tool:SubTool ScrollBar,0,totalSubTools+7]
[IClick,Tool:Sub Tool 0]

The bottom subtool is this:

[ISet,Tool:Sub Tool:SubTool ScrollBar,0,0]
[IClick,Tool:Sub Tool 0]

You can find the position of the scrollbar at any time by using [IGetSecondary, so it's a simple matter to loop through all the subtools and store the scrollbar position for any that are visible.

HTH,

[Game Master 770]

Thanks for the insights Marcus. I'm in the middle of rendering out an animation from Modo, so my PC is bogged down for the weekend, and there is no Mac version to test on with my Mac-mini. :cry:
I hope when the Mac version comes out, I can have Zbrush3 on both machines. :rolleyes:

Anyway, thanks agian for the code insights on the scrollbar. It's the only part I didn't fully grasp yet, during my subtool tests. It should help bring out the "visible SubTools only" feature, I wanted in there from the start.

[Svengali]

It appears if you test the selected subtool with the IGetFlags command, it returns 10 if the subtool is set to NOT visible and 11 if it is.

To add to that, if you test a subtool that ISN'T currently selected, it will return an 8 if it is NOT visible and a 9 if it is.

Sven

[Game Master 770]

Thanks Svengali. I picked up on the 8/9 flags already, and but didn't catch the 10/11 difference, and that was likly the part I needed. :tu: Probably have an update mid week. BTW, you didn't answer my question. If I add the word "Merged" to the name, should it be in the beginning or end? The ZB standard is top put things like this at the end, such as "clone" or "PM", to indicate what the source of the Tool was. But that won't make it easier to find, and that's the point for this one. I would place it at the front, followed by an underscore, but people other than me should realy chime in on that.

[WailingMonkey]

I'd prefer it at the front if given a choice, but either would be fine, since I
just save it out immediately after merging. I personally find the 'Copy1'
pasted on the end of a tool makes it a bit harder to decipher amongst many
copies.

As a side note, it will be quite nice to have the ability to 'merge visible' or
'merge hidden' subtools....looking forward to it, Game Master 770. ;)


cheers.


WailingMonkey

[Svengali]

GM,

Naming is a tricky issue.

Actually, I was leaning towards asking to append MERGED at the end so if the file is saved with that name to a folder, it could be found close to other saved versions with related names... however, since the filename derives from which ever subtool is active at the time it is saved, that doesn't make much sense. So, maybe, if it is applied at the beginning, it could then alphabetically mingle with other merged tools saved to disk at other times. :D

In the QuickSave plugin, because of the auto-incrementing of the same filename, I always scoot up to the top of the list to subtool 0 and increment that (then scoot back down to which ever was the active subtool before the save.)

Looking forward to the next version!

Sven

[zerodean]

If I add the word "Merged" to the name, should it be in the beginning or end?
Is it possible to make this an option? Checkbox for tag at beginning or end.... or something? If it's a pain then I'd lean toward the end.

[marcus_civis]

Just to chime in on the renaming issue:
You can't actually do this without saving the file, right? Well, you can get the path of a saved tool by grabbing the , so, if you follow Sven's method and go to the top first, you could use [FileNameAsk to ask the user for a filename at the beginning, appending MERGED to the existing filename (or top subtool name if there's no path). That would neatly get over any thorny issues of where to save the thing [I]and give the user the option of changing the filename if they wished.

[Noggin]

Fantastic Addition! This has been a great help with a recent project

[gothax]

Awesome plugin, thank you very much!

[Game Master 770]

Mesh based Tools take on the name and graphic of thier current SubTool. So to change the name without saving, you simply change the name of the SubTool. Saving a Tool, actually has the side effect of renaming your current SubTool also.

:ex: This brings up the odd issue, and better to flesh these things out now. Which SubTool, would you name the new mesh? The current SubTool at the time of pressing? Some new name, defined by the user, requiring an additional step? Currently, my plug gives it the name of the top-most SubTool, since that is the first to be exported, and the 1 SubTool that can't be re-ordered. Technically, that is the base SubTool, but beyond not being able to re-order it, I'm not sure what the significance of the base SubTool is.

Given the current feedback, I'll continue to use the "base SubTool's" name, and add "_Merged" at the end. And as I add the visibility feature in, another plug will be spawed from that, which will Invert the visibility of all the SubTools. Maybe add modifier buttons to Make1Mesh too, such as Alt+click to export all SubTools reguardless of visibility. (as it is now) Maybe Shift+click to get a name input box, so you are not forced to accept my renaming.


These strange SubTool dependencies I mentioned, and the fact that you can only Transform (Move/Scale/Rotate) SubTools using the Transpose tool, makes me think that the additional feature of SubTools, is more of a hack, than a well planned out feature. Why else would it be easier to Transform a Multi-Marker item, than a SubTool? You can't even drop a Marker on a SubTool position, or use SubTools with my Recall_Info plug-in for positioning.
Don't get me wrong here, I think the addition of SubTools is great, but I wish it worked more like MultiMarker meshes, or regular mesh Tools, when it comes to Transforms. Give me a gizmo or something other than Transpose! To me, it feels like Tools just bound together in a GUI, and not internally so much.
But reguardless of these issues, it's way better than not having SubTools.

[daddymack]

LEGEND! :tu: :tu:

[Husse]

This is just super great!!!
Thanks a million!

Now if i couk´ld only figure out how to re construct subdivision for my model to export it to light wave.:D


Husse

[Alemar]

Hi
great plugin Game Master 770!
Help me a lot
But I had one problem... When I merge the subtools using your plugin and after use the GRpSplit to open the subtools again, all the UV´s are destroyed.
When I try to import the originals UV´s the high subdivision always explode...
Somebody had the same problem? any workaround?
hope you understand my poor english.
Alemar

[thenade]

Awesome script! I'm wondering if anyone has tried to retopologize a merged mesh? I'm having really unfortunate results. When I project the detail from the merged geometry, I get some pretty unwelcome artifacts.

[WailingMonkey]

thenade, I have not seen those artifacts...I've merged, split off a
section (thanks to the handy polygroups), and re-topo'd a neck/head
without problems. The original piece had something like 16 subtools.
The only thing I did potentially different than you is I deleted parts off
the mesh (by deleting hidden) that I didn't need for my re-topo <shrugs>

Once I got my lower re-topo geometry, I zprojected it back (at higher res)
onto the original to further reflect the structure of the model. And again,
no special artifacts....maybe a screenshot so others can see if they get
them as well?


cheers.


WailingMonkey

[Chrischan]

So next ver will likly have a new name, and polygon count, but not sure about only visible SubTools.
Any more suggestions?thanks for the plugin ... really nice.
it would be nice if the models size would stay the same.
currently the mesh is smaller or bigger after using GrpSplit and exporting the mesh ..

[Anatom]

Accept also my huge thanks, dear GameMaster!:D

The plugin helps so much.
I am also delighted other famous programmers like Svengali, Marcus and all also participate to improve ZB3.
Thus I hope to overcome my frustration on tackling ZB3...:lol:
Feel like mergin should be completely remade, so that it could be performed by a single mouseclick after parts are placed perferctly - in a way of boolean operation in other software...


Anatom

[dubbilan]

Thanks alot!
Exactly what I neede :)

[dubbilan]

I got home, and it worked great for most parts.
However, I was wondering if it is just for me that polypainting is not kept after merging?
My meshes turn colorless, and also without UVs, making me have to export the color as texture and reimport UVs and so on to get color on a mesh that to begin with didnt use textures..

Thanks!

/dubbilan

[mrcq]

thank you a lot

[Game Master 770]

Updated to version 1.24
See new thread for info:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=371262#post371262

P.S. Wish I didn't have to make a new thread, but after 2 weeks, posts can't be modified. :confused:

[Alain C.]

Superb job Game Master! :tu:

You have made this process so effortless for all of us!

It is greatly appriciated ;)

Thanks

[mrcq]

thank you very much for Game Master 770 two time