My Zbrush Plugin!

[Nyx702]

I think I am ready to release my little plugin I have been working on. Most of them are pretty simple and I leaned heavily on the work Marcus and others have done on this forum. So big thanks to them for sharing their enormous amounts of knowledge! Hopefully this can save you guys some time clicking stuff.

I am going to continue to add scripts as I make them. Feel free to let me know if you run into any issues or have any suggestions.

Mask Grow: this script will attempt to grow your mask similar to how you can grow a selection in Photoshop. Enter how many polygons you want it to grow by in the slider and click grow. This is best used at medium to low SubD levels. At higher SubD levels it takes forever and the effect is barley noticeable. Zbr3 does have a "Grow" and "Shrink" mask now but it works differently and blurs the mask.

All SubTools to SubD level: this script will put all your subtools at the SubD level indicated by the slider. This is similar to "All High" and "All Low" in the SubTool menu only with more customization.

PP to Mask: if you have any Polypaint this script will convert it into a mask based on color value with a single click. This is useful if you want a way to preserve complex masks. Note: this script will work with layers as long as the layer(s) are not active.

Colorize Toggle: this script sets colorize (Polypaint) on or off for all your SubTools at once. Toggling them individually if you have lots of Subtools can be super time consuming.

AutoMask PG: ordinarily the brush setting "AutoMask by Polygroup" is a slider. While this feature is awesome when you want it... it's irksome when you don't. This button toggles between 100 (on) and 0 (off) with a button press. Ideally this button should be pulled into your interface somewhere so it's handy.

DOWNLOAD!

To instal:
Place ZSC file in your *\ZStartup\ZPlugs directory.

Huge thanks to my friend Matt as well. Couldn't have done anything without his continual help.

[SKaoru]

Very cool!

But I can't convert polypaint to a Mask. Why?

[Nyx702]

What version of ZB are you using? I can't seem to replicate this. Can you describe how you got to this error?

[SKaoru]

What version of ZB are you using? I can't seem to replicate this. Can you describe how you got to this error?

I use ZBrush4R3. Please watch this video.

[Nyx702]

SKaoru: Thank you for the video. That was helpful. Although I am honestly not sure how you are getting that error. I used the same steps and didn't get the error. Regardless I made some tweaks so try re-downloading it and trying it again?

I have updated the Plugin with another script!

- Random Color: this script was requested by someone on the fourms. It will assign a random color to each of your subtools. This is useful when rendering a flat color pass so you can easily select your subtools when compositing.

DOWNLOAD!

[SKaoru]

Nyx702: I re-downloaded and tried it again. I was able to convert polypaint to mask but I don't know why it was successful. However, This is good script. Thank you.

[jderiggi]

Awesome little tool! The Colorize Toggle is a great feature. Thanks.

[Nyx702]

I have updated my plugin with a couple new features. You'll notice there are a few more buttons! These new buttons will hopefully reduce the amount of time spent browsing for commonly used files and get you sculpting faster.

There are two main things these buttons do. Store and Load Ztools and Zprojects to be quickly loaded on your next Zbrush session. Ztools and Zprojects are handled a little different so listen up. As always feel free post any questions or suggestions.

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- Load Stored ZPR: This button will load a project stored with the "Open" button to the right.

-Open: This button will open the browser for you to select a project. This button also automatically stores the project you open. So after you "Open" a project once its forever stored until you open other with this button.

- Store Tool 1-3: These buttons will store the current tool you are on. You can have three different tools stored at once. Clicking it again will overwrite the previous save. If you CRTL-Click the button it will display the path of the tool saved so you know which Tool is assigned to which button.

- Load Tool 1-3: These buttons will load the Ztools assigned to the neighboring buttons.

Note: To get optimal use out of these scripts I HIGHLY recommend making a custom menu with these buttons and docking it above the "Tools" palette so that it will be close to your other Save/Load buttons. As seen in the GIF image.

If you don't know how to make a custom menu this is a great How To. I also HIGHLY recommend saving a copy of your UI before doing this. There is no real way of deleting custom menus once you have saved your Master Config.

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DOWNLOAD!

[Nyx702]

Hey guys! I have added a couple features to the plugin. These have to do with Subtool visibility. When you have lots of Subtools nothing is more aggravating then when you accidentally unhide all the Subtools you just took the time to carefully hide.

**IMPORTANT!**
I have also made the plugin look at a folder for some of the new data files the plugin generates to keep the clutter to a minimum. If you have used this plugin in the past, more specifically the Quick Load features, you will have to move the file "storedpath.zvr" into the "NicksToolsdata" folder to keep any stored Tool or Project paths. If you don't care or use those features then you can delete the .zvr files and Zbrush will make new ones in the right directory.

- Hide Above/Below: this script hides Subtools above or below the active Subtool in the Subtool menu. This is best used if your Subtools are somewhat organized. Just so their isn't any confusion this DOES NOT hide Subtools above or below based on the canvas position.

-Store/Restore Visibility: this feature is like an extended "Solo" or Isolation mode. When you press "Store Visibility" the current visibility status of all your Subtools are stored. You can hide/unhide subtools any way you want and then recall the stored visibility later. This is useful when you have alot of Subtools and want to just work on just a section. This is saved in between ZB sessions as well.

The script can be kind of slow with high SubD levels. If you want to speed the script up, select the top Subtool before running!

It is very important you do not add/delete or rearrange subtools after storing if you want to recall them again. It will give you an error and you will have to store the visibility again. The script looks at total subtool count so if you change it then it gets confused.

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[papagersi]

it seems that the restoring works fine at the first time,, but if I store again with other subtool,, it only loads subtools that I stored first,



could you make video for that? or am I missing something.. )

[Nyx702]

Are you having problems with the new visibility storing or the subtool quick load scripts?

[Funky Bunnies]

woo this gets better and better, Nyx!
well done

[stefanobernardi]

Hi, I'm testing out your plugin on Mac OSX.
Since my last project had 57 subtools, I really needed some of the features of your plugin!
If I find some error, I'll write you.

Thanks!

[KC-Production]

Awesome just what I need, really helpful ! Really big thanks for sharing this mate

[SKaoru]

it seems that the restoring works fine at the first time,, but if I store again with other subtool,, it only loads subtools that I stored first,



could you make video for that? or am I missing something.. )

The same problem happened to me.