ZBrushCentral

Curve brush question

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I have made an insert mesh curve brush I am trying to loop around another mesh. I start to draw the a curve on the mesh (which has no subdivs) hold shift, and drag the curve off the mesh, which would normally wrap the curve in a loop around the mesh. However it is not working, when I hold shift the curve brush seems to stop drawing instances of the insert mesh and the thin red line just stretches out, the insert curve brush does not loop around the mesh I am drawing on. It has been a little while since I tried this functionality, but I am sure that is how I did it in the past. Is there something else I have to consider?

Any advice much appreciated.

#2

For the sake of clarity, let’s just verify that the correct procedure for doing this is to start drawing a curve on a surface with curve mode activated for the brush, then pressing shift during that stroke, and dragging the action line off of the mesh into empty canvas space. If it is not working for your custom brush, try it with one of the stock curve brushes instead. If that works but your brush doesn’t, compare the settings.

That said, this feature is simply limited in the complexity of object it can figure out. You may be asking too much of it. Try it on a simpler object like a basic cylinder.

#3

That feature is heavily dependent on your brush size and viewport angle for precision. If your brush size is too small and you are up too close to the model you’re trying to “ring” around you’ll have a difficult time getting it to work. To set this up efficiently you’ll want to zoom out until your model is smaller and increase your draw size until your brush is bigger and try the same operation and you’ll get the results you’re after. Curve Strap Snap is a great brush to experiment with.

If the size of the inserted mesh on the curve is now too large because your draw size was large, that’s easy to fix after the initial curve has been laid in and that is to just decrease your draw size to your desired size and then click on the active curve to update your inserted mesh to the new, smaller size. It still works and all is well just tested it.