ZBrushCentral

Increase Precision of Project Range

This question is especially for Marcus Civis and the like - basically those who might be able to shed some light on whether the following is possible and the reasons why or why not.

I would like to increase the precision of the Zsphere Tool/Projection/Projection Range variable. Right now it appears to be limited to two decimal places. I would like to see it increased to at least five possible decimal places or more.
The reason is that this seems to me to be where the problem lies when I try to retopo a mesh that has topological elements that are very close to each other and sometimes even crashing, such as teeth. So, is this possible? and is it something I can expect to see in future updates to Zbrush?

Use projection strength to subdue it (this will reduce detail). Then “project all” your new mesh over the original to get the detail back.
Any final details not recovered can be done with the projection brush.

Francis,

Although the slider only displays 2 decimal places, I think you’ll find that the precision is greater - up to six decimal places (although there is some inaccuracy presumably associated with storing float values).

The attached zscript will show this. Enter a value into the Projection Range slider using the keyboard and then press the zscript button to see what value is returned.

However, I doubt if this will solve issues where parts of the mesh overlap.

HTH,

Morph Division - Thanks, that is definitely helpful, although I can’t seem to find anything about this “project all” option you refer to. Can you clarify for me?

Marcus - Sometimes I love being wrong. Thank you.

I should point something out though since I think you’re in a position to maybe do something about it. I had actually previously considered the possibility that it simply did not display all of the decimal places that it can calculate for and I tried it, but when you enter a negative value with more than 2 decimal places (I’ve been finding that negative values give me the best results - could you explain why that would be? I’m not really clear on what the difference is in what it’s doing) it returns some random negative value like -0.37, therefore I had previously assumed that it can not be done via the interface - and even when trying it now, if you hit enter after that value is placed in the edit box then that is the value that shows after you exit the edit box. It seems that in order for the value you typed to be placed there you need to type in the value and then simply click in the view port, then it displays just a negative value and the projection works as expected.

Thanks again guys

Francis,

  1. Click on the slider to make it active.
  2. Enter the numbers from the keyboard, pressing ‘-’ first for negative values.
  3. Press the ‘Enter’ key to enter the value.

The image shows the result of my entering -.378968 this way and getting the value with my script.

EDIT: I presume that sometimes negative values will work better than positive but it will depend entirely on the nature of the mesh and the relationship between subdivision levels.

Attachments

ProjRange.jpg

Marcus, to clarify:

I’m entering -0.0001 and the box returns values like -0.38 or -0.51 (just got that one). If I hit enter after that then you’ll notice the slider moves quite a bit away from 0 to where you’d expect the -0.51 value to be and thereafter if I click in the viewport the box retains the value of -0.51, and the projection works as you would expect for -0.51 not -0.0001. Whereas if I enter -0.0001 and then click in the viewport without hitting enter first the box shows ‘-’ and the projection works as expected.

I was just pointing out that it seems to have a quirk that misleads and judging by your results it seems that it may even be unique to the type of values I’m trying to enter - values very close to zero.

Update: Wow! - it’s even more quirky than that. It does not even consistently follow what I’ve outlined. I’ve been sitting here repeatedly typing in -0.001 and alternating the order or existence of the steps of hitting enter and clicking in the viewport and it seems to be random luck as to whether the value I’ve entered will stick or whether I’ll get some other random value.

Francis,

OK, I can reproduce this. It seems to happen when the value is close to zero. Sometimes I will get -1 when I enter -.0001.

Thanks, I’ll pass this on.

Cool - Thanks Marcus

“Project all” under subtool menu. :wink:

Hey, I’ve been without internet for the last week. Thanks for the reply Morph Division.

:idea:
just thought…perhaps if you scale your model up you could use a higher value, so as not to get the error with a number too close to zero? maybe?
Maya has similar issues…thought it might be worth a try.

EDIT: Also use a multiple of 10 to determine how large to scale

for example:
if this is the value (hypothetical) 0.001 then scale by 100 to give 0.1

That’s a good suggestion Morph. I’ll give that a shot.

that makes sense after some thought.What you could possibly to, however, is figure out what that exact range is then just fool the server into thinking you are in that range, or using MQ2MoveUtils /stick to actually stay in that range.