Sculpt Thin Air

[Marsyas]

thinair1.jpg

Hello, :)

This is just something fun I thought up a while back which allows you to seemingly sculpt geometry out of 'thin air'. I'm sure someone else has probably thought of it too.

It's kinda like sculpting in 2.5D on the canvas, only you're using an actual tool, so you can tumble it, etc. You can even assign materials, paint the geometry, or create a new mesh of your strokes.

To start, just download the zip, then open both the document and the ztool contained within. Draw the ztool on the canvas, enter edit mode, then start sculpting within the borders.

If you want to turn your strokes into a new mesh, be sure to save a morph target before sculpting (Tool>Morph Target>StoreMT) and then create a difference mesh when done sculpting (Tool>Morph Target>CreateDiff Mesh).

Have fun!

thinair2.jpg

[ancomic]

Very good!
Thank you. :tu:

[Jesse.Aitui]

Thanks, I had fun with this.

But is there anyway to get rid of the border?

-Zbrush newb.

[Marsyas]

Thanks, ancomic!

Thanks, Jesse.Aitui! To make the border disappear you can select the second subtool (the transparent plane hiding the one you're sculpting) and increase the Deformation slider for Size (Tool>Deformation>Size).

[Jesse.Aitui]

Yay, thanks :D

[Z-Designer]

good,
thanks

[GulagOne]

I'm gonna try this tonight it seems pretty cool.

[bLawless]

Pretty neat. I just sculpt my models and I don't know much about document/materials. How did you make the second subtool transparent?

Thanks,
Brandon

[Marsyas]

bLawless -- Hi! Transparency in ZBrush requires multiple layers and turning 'flatten' off in the render settings. Then you can use the transparency property of materials to make them transparent to objects on other layers. The second tool is just filled with a transparent material.

Holding down 'ctrl' when hovering over the transparency modifier of the material will probably show more detailed info.

[bLawless]

bLawless -- Hi! Transparency in ZBrush requires multiple layers and turning 'flatten' off in the render settings. Then you can use the transparency property of materials to make them transparent to objects on other layers. The second tool is just filled with a transparent material.

Holding down 'ctrl' when hovering over the transparency modifier of the material will probably show more detailed info.I think you mean the 'opacity modifier', because I can see no 'transparency modifier' in the material palette, modifiers.

In any case, I am so unfamilier with materials that when I tried to do as you say, it is not working (first I gave a subtool a new layer, then in the materials, modifiers, opacity, I slid the opacity modifier slider all the way to the left).

-Brandon

[Marsyas]

Not all materials have a Transparency modifier--you'll have to pick something like the BasicMaterial or copy/paste shaders into materials with multiple channels.

Also, by 'multiple layers' I meant document layers ('Layers' menu), not subtool layers. You have to create at least two, and 'Flatten' in the 'Render' menu must be turned off.

Do this as an example to see how:

1. Launch ZBrush.
2. Scribble out a stroke on the canvas.
3. Create a new document layer ('Layer' menu>Create').
4. Unpress 'Flatten' in the 'Render' Menu.
5. Select the 'BasicMaterial' (click on the picture of the 'MatCap Red Wax' material to bring up the full list of materials and select the third material in the 'Startup Standard Materials').
6. Scribble out another stroke on the canvas, overlapping the first stroke.
7. Open the material modifiers ('Material>Modifiers') and move the 'Transparency' slider down to '-50'.

Your second stroke (on the second document layer) should become slightly transparent.

[bLawless]

Thanks very much, I'll try this out soon.
-Brandon

[shanpeter]

Can I get any other sculpt images here?

[SpaceMan]

Marsyas thanks for this post. I just downloaded the zip.

I was going through some ideals about using zbrush 3.1 for making comic books and begain thniking about the page panels. Can the ztool change it size? Someone posted some font tools here and do you know it the fonts could also be used on the air tool? Can you say zbrush paint (sky - landscapes, etc) then size the air ztool over the painting layer - (thinking this might make a cool boarder tool for comic book pages and panels and illustrated novel illustrations)?
TIA

[SpaceMan]

COOL:D

Image1q.jpg

Made a zscript showing how to change the square into abstract shapes. First zb3.1 zsrcipt so I hope it works - works on my zb.3.1

Can you save the finish work as a ztool model?
I tried using the morph targets as you said - but I haven't used them much and might not being it right.