Custom UI stuff

[ambient-whisper]

Hey guys.

Not sure if anyone cares, but some users were talking about zbrush and complaining about the interface and all... and how difficult it was to customize zbrush over on the Luxology forum so i ended up explaining it and posting my custom UI there as per request. seems like as soon as they learned how easy it actually is, it became fun again.

anyway, to make a long story short, if anyone wants to have a play with it, here it is...

http://www.martinkrol.com/uploads/stuff/MK_ZBrush3_config.rar


and heres a preview. its simple really. brushes, colours, alphas, textures, etc on the left. brush options on the bottom, and tools on the right. some stuff has to be reached through hotkeys or the rmb menu ( like edit mode, or move, rotate, scale ). its a very circular setup. been using the same setup for a few years now and it seems to work great, especially on laptops where vertical space is usually very limited.

http://www.martinkrol.com/uploads/images/underworld3/UW3_CenterWall_03.jpg


if you guys have Custom UIs that you want to share then Id love to see what you have got.

cheers.

[spaceboy412]

Good for you Martin, i'm sick of hearing about it too. Honestly the way you can really change the UI for zbrush has spoiled me and now i'm frustrated that i cannot do the same with other apps.
heres a screenshot of my UI, i use a bunch of custom macros, i'm not fond of the brush icons due to their size and my small monitor so i made macros of the few i use the most often.
Also onscreen is my custom popup menu that i have assigned to my wacom's pen thumb(top) and i have the normal popup on the thumb bottom, the only time i ever need to touch the keyboard is for naming.

[ncollings]

hey martin how are doing man? i had a great time reading your interview, congratz for the amazing job you came up with :).

Anyways here is my contribution to this thread, pretty simple config but really effective for me.

Preview :: Here (http://www.nicolascollings.com/temp/Collings_ZB3_UI.jpg)
File :: Here (http://www.nicolascollings.com/temp/Collings_ZB3_UI.rar)

-N

[SalmonGod]

I've done a bit of UI customizing, but nothing as extensive as you guys.

I'm totally with you though. I love the way ZBrush interacts. Once you get used to it, it's so smooth and accessible. The people who complain are just too thoroughly grounded in other apps that are more standardized, but less efficient IMO.

Seriously, people complain the most about ZBrush's viewport navigation, but ZB does it with one key when other apps take four. This is really the crux of my interface, because I bind undo/redo to my Intuous pen buttons. Bind alt, shift, ctrl, and ctrl+shift to the left hand keys on the tablet. Bind [] to the thumb slider for brush sizing. You'll almost never touch your keyboard again. Not possible in any other app. I even have controls left over on the right side of the tablet for winamp :D

Plus, I love the feeling that instead of floating around in a scene, I'm holding an object in my hands. It puts me on a more personal level with my work.

[spaceboy412]

salmon i have most of my wacom keys set up the same but have the touchstrip as undo/redo which i use often. for brush size i just have the main popup menu as my first pen thumb button, considering i will be playing with focal shift, rgb etc its just for me, a better option. i also use the bottom tablet key to pullup a plugin i have that will allow me to input numbers into any sliders etc so i don't have to get my keyboard.
i wish photoshop could be as customizable as zbrush, but now with the new video PS might not even be so necessary for me anymore.
i have to totally agree with how easy viewport navigation is, its incredibly simple and doesnt require a ton of key commands, not to mention that you can just hit the popup and use the buttons there as well. they tried something like that in the new 3d coat but navigation there is still clumsy.
i think someone once described zbrushs nav as your model on a lazy susan which is really what makes the most sense.

[eldee.s]

hrm, i've modified mine quite a bit.. i'd post it here but I dunno if it will work unless you have all of my plugins/materials/etc installed also. It's also pretty specific to my work resolution.

and yes, that model is 37.3 million polygons lol

[leonuts]

eldee: And the download link?

[spaceboy412]

leonuts, as eldee said you probably would need all his special plugins etc.
i think the point here is to see that zbrush can be customized easily and to suit your own needs, give it a shot.

[Disco Stu]

Ill seriously have to try this out again.
Tried two or three times but never got it to work.
I was always unable to drag them even tho i followed a tut.
Will try it out again later sometime.
Id be greatfull if someone could just tell me where to put your uis files.
Thanks for the share :) :tu:

[Disco Stu]

Ill also have to get the brush size to the touch strip.
I like the way i can change it with the button on the pen
but when opening the menu and klicking something by accident i
had plenty of zbrush crashes.

[ambient-whisper]

hey martin how are doing man? i had a great time reading your interview, congratz for the amazing job you came up with :).

Anyways here is my contribution to this thread, pretty simple config but really effective for me.

Preview :: Here (http://www.nicolascollings.com/temp/Collings_ZB3_UI.jpg)
File :: Here (http://www.nicolascollings.com/temp/Collings_ZB3_UI.rar)

-Ndoing great :). Went to Singapore recently and it was awesome. Got to meet a bunch of wicked artists there too which was nice. What are you up to?! :) Have you met Brent George at UBI yet? If you have, give him a kick in the butt from me :D

Its great to see everyone's UIs. I especially like how different they all are.