ZBrushCentral

QUESTION: beginner questions getting started with ZScripting

hi, sorry, i’m still making my way through the zscript forums so if these questions have been answered before, my apologies.

  1. is there any regular expression support in zscript?
  2. is there any way to obtain a file list (recursing sub directories and filterable by extension would be even better!) given a directory path in zscript?
  3. there are a lot of posts and the wiki refer to a ZScript Window, which makes me think of the various script listener windows available in other 3d apps that constantly log the scripts while you do things in the application. I can’t find that in ZB. it seems like you can start recording and stop and then save out the script, but there’s no way to see what the script would be as you do things like press buttons or manipulate meshes…?

thanks a ton and sorry for the n00b questions!

  1. No, sorry.
  2. Not directly in ZScript. This is possible through a dll. The ZFileUtils will do it OK but be aware that many of the functions in that are now out of date.
    http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/ZScript_FileUtils
  3. You can see the commands as the are executed by
    a) starting recording by pressing the ZScript>Record button
    b) pressing the ZScript>Rec button. This will show the commands in the ZScript Window at the bottom of the UI. Drag the handle to show the window, or press H on the keyboard.

thanks marcus!

regarding that ZScript_FileUtils.dll file…so that’s provided as is and the author is not planning on updating it for the latest version of zb?

also, was this dll written by zb developers? since there’s no sdk, i’m not sure how else it could have been written and provide the ZScript interfaces that it does…? if it wasn’t, then is there documentation on how we can write our own dlls to provide routines that can be used either globally by the ZB community or locally for whatever scripts/plugins i’d like to write?

thanks again!

The ZFileUtils was written in house at Pixologic but some time ago. It provided some functions which wouldn’t be available now. I would like to see it updated but I would guess that it’s not high on the list of priorities.

If you have some knowledge of C++ I could help you with writing a dll. However this would not have direct access to ZBrush’s data structures. PM me if you are interested. I’d like to write a tutorial at some point but until then I’d rather discuss this further using email.