Pixologic Release: Reset Brush - a plugin for ZBrush 3.1 (updated 2/25/08)

[marcus_civis]

ResetBrushPic.jpg






Reset Brush makes it easy to use your own custom brush settings or reset brushes to their correct alphas and other settings.


:b3: Reset brushes any time they need it
:b3: Store new custom settings without overwriting ZBrush's default brushes
:b3: Load custom settings each session with a single button press





INSTRUCTIONS



1. Install the plugin and restart ZBrush.



2. Load a model and enter Edit mode.

3. If you wish, make changes to the default brushes. For example, you might want to set the Smooth Brush Z Intensity to 50.

4. Press the Reset Brush button at the top of the Brush palette. The first time the button is pressed after installation the brush settings are stored. This only happens once, though you can store new settings at any time.

5. If for some reason you wish to reset a brush, select it and press the Reset Brush button.

6. To reset all brushes, Shift+click the Reset Brush button. Do this at the start of a ZBrush session to load your preferred settings.

7. To store new settings, Shift+click the Reset Brush button and choose Store New Settings from the options.









Installation


Unzip the zip file to your ZBrush3\ZStartup\ZPlugs folder.

Make sure that your unzipping program preserves the folder structure of the plugin otherwise it will not work. (In Winzip this is the 'use folder names' option. In WinRar check 'use relative paths' in the Advanced options.) See the attached image for the correct folder structure.

The zip contains:

ResetBrush.zsc - the plugin file

ResetBrushData - the plugin data folder which contains:
ZFileUtils.dll - the dll file
TempCurve.zcv
BrushData.zsc
ResetBrushBack.jpg
ResetBrushData_folder.txt


Restart ZBrush. You should now have a Reset Brush button under the Clone button in the Brush palette.




Updated to include Smoothing Curve : February 16 2008

The Smoothing Curve is actually independent of the individual brushes (it's not saved when saving a brush to disk) but this update will restore the curve when the Smooth brush is selected or when resetting all brushes.

thumb.jpg

I hope you find Reset Brush useful.

[brettSinclair]

Fantastic! Now I don't need to restart zbrush when I destroy my brush! Haha. Thanks for this!

[spaceboy412]

Marcus thank you for this i'm sure it will come in handy, not to mention for all the people who post wanting this sort of thing every other day;)

[bicc39]

Once you get zbrush to:

1. Make toast.
2. Brew coffee.
3. Play DVD's
4. Start the car.

Then you may consider yourself finished.

In the meantime......

Extreme gratitude, as usual

[sirhcnait]

Marcus- Another great job

Bicc39- LOL

..and you wonder why I love this forum

[nightwoodwolf]

marcus another great plugin ... thanks man

[Blaine91555]

Thank you Marcus :tu: :tu:

[DigitalDreamer]

Thanks for this Marcus. The first thing I do when I start zbrush is to adjust the smooth brush down to about 15 and adjust i'ts smoothing curve. This is a needed time saver. Thanks again. :D

[Anuxinamoon]

Oh this is perfect thanks <3 I'll install it when I get to work on monday.

I second the; zbrush now makes coffee idea ;)

[stumpf]

Many Thanks Marcus!

Cheers

Ralf Stumpf

[KOSOVA]

Thank you for this great plugin.

[markkens]

Thanks M.C. ! (Must stand for Master Coder):tu::tu::tu::tu::tu:

[Bingo_Jackson]

Ditto. I also spend the first 3 minutes in the program adjusting the new smooth brush back into some kind of usuable form, as well as depowering some of the other brushes for more subtle effect. If this works as advertised, it will be a godsend.

Thanks Marcus!

[Svengali]

Fills a desperate need! Thanks Marcus... :D

Sven

[feureau]

Somebody stop this guy! He's making better and better plugins! Soon he'll be powerful enough to make ZB sculpt on its own! WE'LL ALL BE OUT OF A JOB!! EXTINCT!!! SOMEBODY!!! PLEEEASE!!!!



It's like ZB kept fulfilling everything we really need and nothing that we don't.
Thanks marcus! Just what I needed. A way to save brush presets and load them at will!

[marcus_civis]

Thanks for the comments guys. :)

Small update to include the Smoothing Curve. Reset it when the Smooth Brush is selected or Reset All (with or without the curves option).

[dustbin1_uk]

Ah! this is going to really help! thank you!

[stalsby]

very useful plugin! can't wait to install it when i get home! thanks!

[froyd]

Thats gonna be a great helper. thanks for this one, marcus! :)

froyd

[Trurl]

Thank you Marcus!

[Scott Spencer]

This looks great Marcus!!! Will it save stroke settings like the color slider seting in spray stroke? That was one thing that got lost from ZB3 to 3.1 I missed : )


GREAT looking plug. io cant wait to get home to try it.

S

[Atwooki]

Great stuff yet again Marcus!

Many thanks for putting this together :tu::tu::tu::tu::tu:

Can't wait to check this out when I get back to planet Europe next week ;)

Chris

[marcus_civis]

Thanks guys. :)

Scott,

The plugin will currently reset Placement, Color and Scale for the Spray stroke types. There's a problem with settings that are not saved with brushes in that they can only be set once. So if you have one brush of Spray and one of Colorized Spray then the plugin will reset them correctly. More than that and all brushes of the same stroke type will be reset to the same settings - whatever they were at when the plugin stored them.

HTH,

[haamu]

The first thing I noticed after installing was that all the menus refused to stay open while ctrl/shift/alt was pressed so no shift clicking was possible. Then I placed the button in my custom ui and every time I click that new button, it disappears and creates a new instance of itself in the brush menu under the original button. The menu closing effect disappeared after few restarts though.

[marcus_civis]

haamu,

I can't reproduce either of these issues but I may be able to correct the repeating button issue. Please check your messages and if the fix works for you I'll post an update.

Thanks,

[Tom Savage]

Many thanks for another great plug-in.

[Nolan_R]

Is there any way to ensure the modified brushes are in place at start-up?
At the moment I have to select each brush and press the Reset Brush button to get the modified version (or shift-click and do them all at once).
Not a massive problem, but it would be nice if the modified versions were automatically loaded when you start ZBrush.

[marcus_civis]

Is there any way to ensure the modified brushes are in place at start-up?
At the moment I have to select each brush and press the Reset Brush button to get the modified version (or shift-click and do them all at once).
Not a massive problem, but it would be nice if the modified versions were automatically loaded when you start ZBrush.

I couldn't find a satisfactory way of doing this. Custom brushes saved to the ZStartup\BrushPresets folder will load at startup, so for brushes you use often that is the quickest way. You would then just reset them as necessary.

[Nolan_R]

Fair enough. Really useful plug-in anyway

[marcus_civis]

Thanks. :) If I can enhance the plugin I will update it.

[moreHuhn]

thank you!

[Haider_zbrush]

This is great!

I just droppet by the forum to search for a brush related info and then I find this.
So does it mean there is no way to make Zbrush remember the brush setting, eg intensity value, all by itself without this tool?

[Drakelot]

It will be very helpfull, thanks !

[Jester]

I've stored the brushes, but they never reloaded...I'm a bit tired of adjusting my smoothbrush in all ZB session...any idea?

[marcus_civis]

If you stored the brushes correctly then a custom Smoothing Curve should load when you:
1. Select the Smooth Brush
2. Press the Reset Brush button.

If your custom curve fails to load then you either haven't stored the brushes correctly or you need to download the updated version of the plugin (available at the start of the thread).

[--E--]

I could be wrong here, but it appears that with the latest revision. Hitting "Reset Brush" on the standard brush loads alpha 58 for some reason. which is not the default alpha for the standard brush. Unless I am using it incorrectly.

[marcus_civis]

Hi Eric,

I can't reproduce that error. Are you sure that you didn't accidentally store that alpha with the standard brush? That is the only way it would be loaded when resetting. By default the standard brush has no alpha.

[Chrischan]

very handy plugin marcus ^^ many thanks for that :)

[--E--]

marcus,

I suppose that is possible, but that alpha doesn't load with the standard brush when zbrush starts. how would I go about un-storeing it?

-EDIT-

Nm, I used your plugin to store the new settings. This is odd though as I have never used the store setting before. I didn't even know it existed...

[marcus_civis]

Nm, I used your plugin to store the new settings. This is odd though as I have never used the store setting before. I didn't even know it existed...

In that case you may have inadvertently stored the wrong alpha. The first time you press the Reset Brush button after installation it will store the settings, with whatever the brushes are set to at that time.

Let me know if you have any more problems.

[--E--]

Also, I am unable to get it to store the "Z Intensity" for the smooth brush. When I hit "Reset Brush" it loads in the new smooth curve fine, but the Z Intensity remains at "100". It appears to store this setting just fine for other brushes though.

EDIT - haha, I am having an odd morning, the z intensity appears to be saving fine now... not sure how or why, but when I hit reset it loads it correctly. :D

Awesome plug in marcus!

[Rols574]

i might be doing something wrong but i cant download it

[marcus_civis]

Rols574,

I just tested the download and it worked fine. What problem are you having?

[v3rtig0]

Marcus, you are the Jesus Christ of Zbrush. Thanks man, you rock!

[quakeking]

Amazing...That's great! The plugin is very very useful! Thank u very much!:D

[msoon2k]

hi marcus, please help. I've just installed the plugin and set up my brushes and saved the settings.

However when i went abouts setting up hot keys for those brushes ( keys 1- 6 ), they don't work . Plugin seems to have disabled all my hotkeys. they worked well before i reset the brushes.

Mark Soon

[marcus_civis]

msoon2k,

I've not heard of this problem before. Reset Brush does not alter anything that would affect the hotkey setup. Are you sure that you saved your hotkeys?

[msoon2k]

Hi Marcus,

thanks for the reply.

Sorry about before, it was my bad. I was setting up hotkeys for the brushes on the wrong panel. It's working now

However, i've found that when i reload zbrush the day after, the alphas, intensities and curves of my brushes are messed up. I've tried shift-Clicking the reset brush button and resetting with curves etc, but it doesn't work. my brushes are still messed up.

What am i doing wrong Marcus?

Regards,

Mark S

[marcus_civis]

msoon2k,

Reset Brush will not automatically set your brushes on start up. For custom settings you need to Shift-click the button. If your brushes are not set correctly after doing that then it is because the settings have not been stored. You need to set up your brushes, Shift-click the button and choose 'Store New Settings'.

[msoon2k]

thanks marcus

[DomzDream]

Where In zbrush 3.1 is the smooth intensity. In zbrush 2.0 it used to be under transform I thing, where you had your little slider. They seem to have changed it in zb3. Please help.

Thanks.

[marcus_civis]

DomzDream,

Intensity for the Smooth brush is set thru the Z Intensity slider. The Smoothing Curve is in the Brush palette.

[DomzDream]

Thanks, Marcus.
Hmm...I thought it might be there. It's rather excessive don't you think? You really have to lower the intensity in order get any desireable results. I miss the old zbrush 2.0 settings. You hit space bar, boom, straight in your little control box. I've been reading other peoples' complaints about it. Whew! A lot of complaints! It just seems clumsier in this version I think.
Anyway, thanks.;)

[3dfighter]

hi dude thanks allot its really nice plug-in many thanks for your great effort,

[JeremyD]

Thanks for sharing, fixes a mild frustration.

[BetaRayBill]

Very nice. Got it working now. (is there a way for it to automatically run at startup?)

[marcus_civis]

(is there a way for it to automatically run at startup?)

I'm afraid not. :(

[mahadeva]

wow, thanks! I can now step back from the ledge.

[BetaRayBill]

Been usin it for a while now,.. saves a ton of time.. thanks again.
One question,.... is there a way for it to save while in Projection Master?.. I'm getting an error that says, "no mesh in edit mode?"

[marcus_civis]

Been usin it for a while now,.. saves a ton of time.. thanks again.
One question,.... is there a way for it to save while in Projection Master?.. I'm getting an error that says, "no mesh in edit mode?"

I'm not quite sure why you would want to use the plugin while in Projection Master - the sculpting brushes aren't available. But if you want to, simply select a mesh (e.g. the Polymesh3D 'star'), hit 'T' to enter Edit mode and then the plugin will be available, along with the sculpting brushes.

[BetaRayBill]

In Projection Master, I switch to the cloner brush, color spray, switch alpha, turn off mrgb and zadd, and turn on rgb every time I need to paint out a seam on a head, or touch up my head maps. I could definitely use it!!

[marcus_civis]

In Projection Master, I switch to the cloner brush, color spray, switch alpha, turn off mrgb and zadd, and turn on rgb every time I need to paint out a seam on a head, or touch up my head maps. I could definitely use it!!

Ah, now I understand. The cloner brush is one of the 2.5 tools (in the tool palette), rather than a sculpting brush in the Brush palette, so is outside the control of the Reset Brush plugin. But any 2.5 tool can be saved. All you need to do is this:

1. Select the Cloner brush. You don't need to be in Projection Master, simply not have a model in Edit mode.
2. Set it up how you want with your preferred settings and the alpha.
3. From the Tool palette, save it to the ZBrush ZTools folder as a ztool, clicking yes to save the alpha along with it.

You can then just load that file any time you need it. You could even record a macro to load it using a hotkey.

HTH,

[saltapiedras]

Gracias marcus. Te queremos...:tu: :tu: :tu:

[JamesG]

My brush settings seem to be getting whacked quite often after I've installed this plugin. I've also never used custom brushes - only the ones that ship with zb.

The problem I'm running into is that if I'm using one brush, then switch to another, many of the parameters are transferred to the new brush, like alphas, intensity settings, rgb modifiers, etc... this happens in the middle of a session simply by switching brushes.

Hitting the reset button works for a few minutes (I've save the custom settings correctly - I believe), but then the process repeats itself shortly thereafter. Is this a known issue? It happens so much I've just made a hotkey for it and use it when ever I switch brushes now.

I skimmed through this thread but didn't notice this coming up... Anyone running into this?

[marcus_civis]

This is a known issue with ZBrush but if you feel the plugin is part of the problem then uninstall it. You may find that avoiding using 'Alt' to switch brush modes (such as between ZAdd & ZSub) helps maintain brush settings.

HTH,

[kingkong_one]

:lol: Thanks Marcus!

[Ohlda]

thanks a lot!!!!!!

:) :) :)

m

[KenH]

Hi. Great plugin. But I'm having the same problem as Hamu. When I click on the reset brush button (which I dragged out in the UI) it disappears and a second instance is in the brush menu.
Was there a solution? Thanks.

[marcus_civis]

Ken,

Thanks for the comments. I am aware of this issue and will correct if I update the plugin but I don't have plans to do that just now. Instead of dragging to your custom UI you could assign a hotkey to the plugin button to speed use.

Cheers,

[robinmitra1]

thanks mate...ur the man!

[kursadk]

Marcus, this is a bad@$$ script. Thank you so much!

[Eraserhead]

Very helpful plugin Although when I shift click the reset brush button to store new settings, in this case so that my standard brush stores a custom alpha it doesn't store the new setting when I click the reset brush.

[marcus_civis]

Very helpful plugin Although when I shift click the reset brush button to store new settings, in this case so that my standard brush stores a custom alpha it doesn't store the new setting when I click the reset brush.

When adding a new custom alpha you may need to restart ZBrush before the brush will reset properly.

HTH,

[Pennzoil]

Edit: Nevermind, i figured it out.

Thanks for the great plugin :D