ZBrushCentral

How Do I Make the Default Clay Transparent

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I’ve been away from ZBrush 3 almost since I did the upgrade to 3/3.1 and now that I’m getting back into it, I can’t seem to make the default clay, or any other material, transparent. I’ve set up two layers (checked pattern on 1 and red clay sphere on 2). turned off flatten, turned down RGB intensity but I just can’t find the transparency button just isn’t there and I can’t find anything on transparency.TransCurve anyplace else. Apart from that the help file seems to be screwed up and it’s pointing to R2.5. Any assistance greatly appreciated. :eek:

#2

the bottom right on the default UI click on the TRANS button. makes your current subtool transparent.

#3

Thanks for the response. :slight_smile: I can see that it’s there when you startup but that’s not the problem. What I’m doing is this:

  1. initialize ZBrush
  2. set Flatten off
  3. draw a checker pattern on a plane in layer 1
  4. Create a new layer
  5. draw the standard Clay sphere on the new layer - it’s now that I want to change transparency but I don’t have access to (or see) the trans button anymore (it’s just not there) in the lower right of the screen where it normally lives. This is what I don’t understand and what I’m trying to find out. Without this button how do I control transparency? I’ve looked through the offline manual but it doesn’t tell you how it works. :confused:

If I select the head at startup the Transp button is active. If, however, I select the sphere it’s not.

#4

The Transp button you are talking about is for SubTool transparency - in other words the button is only active when your ztool has subtools. In order to use material transparency you need to select a material with a transparency modifier, such as GelShader, and adjust the transparency slider for the material (provided you have followed the steps you describe for two layers and Flatten off).

#5

Thanks Marcus. What I am trying to do is set up image planes so that I can model say a head (with images on the planes as reference) with a material that is semi transparent, which seems to be the idea behind using planes though it’s not really explained in any great detail I can find - general procedure yes, detailed procedure no. :confused: