How to get finer slider adjustment control for positioning background images

[system]

I’m starting to use pictures as background images when building characters in ZBrush.

How can I get more precise control when adjusting horizontal offset for a map I’ve set to be the background of my front isometric view? I realize I can keep typing in different numbers, but that seems like extra work just to obtain a result that is best decided based on visible feedback (in other words, does the center line of the picture match up with the center line of the canvas?)

Maya allows three different settings for how quickly a mouse movement will update the numbers displayed.
When dealing with a starting value is 0.52219, dragging the slider does not produce a precise result. I end up having to type in 5 or more numbers (hi, low), to get the value right.

Thank you.

[Extra_Dimensional]

Fine tuning the default sliders in zbrush isn’t fun. They like to stick and jump around and hurt your mouse/stylus hand as you strain your grip trying to be precise. There is a “slider center snap” option in the customize interface under UI that you can tweak to help. It slides easier if it doesn’t want to snap to center so strongly, with my touch at least it feels easier if it’s turned completely off. Ever notice how it’s difficult to get 1,2 or 3 on your sliders (out of 1-100 range)? It’s due to this setting. Turn it off and leave it off and you’ll be able to fine tune your sliders more easily and with less frustration.

As far as I know there are no other adjustments available outside of plugins for this. And if there are plugins or scripts that help I don’t know of them perhaps someone else here does.

I know this doesn’t help with what you’re asking in particular, but as far as I know it’s the only available option to fine tune a slider we have, barring those sliders that come with an “upper bar slider” on them that allow fine tune adjustment. If there’s a way to split any slider into a two level slider I’d like to know as well as it may be useful. If you’d like an example of a fine tuner slider you can check some of the BPR filters in the render palette, plenty there.

[system]

Thank you. Great to know about that adjustment.

For those ‘following along at home’ , the adjustment is actually found in Preferences:Interface.

Turned it off, seemed to help a bit. That slider adjustment is still too jumpy, IMHO. Even tried slowing down the mouse (through mouse-settings, for system)… no difference.

I suppose there’s some way to figure out an arbitrary setting for horizontal offset, based upon image dimensions and how that relates to the slider’s numeric setting. Too much work, unless a lot of different background images are being used.

Would be great if one could press a hotkey to allow for greater granularity of slider adjustment.

Looked in the BPR Filters for an example of a ‘fine tuner’ slider, didn’t find one. Will watch for such, as I gain more experience with adjusting these filters.

Thank you for the detailed response!

[Extra_Dimensional]

Old dog new tricks kind of day. This question led me to explore more after I went to point to an exact location of a fine tune slider for you and I couldn’t find any either all of a sudden. So I thought about it for a second and realized it must be something “I do” without knowing I do it that gets those to appear in my wild and reckless slider pushing/tweaking. And I sorted it out.

Basically you hover your mouse over a slider at the very tip top of the slider window, above the text, like right where the white line at the top and click and hold there and start sliding left and right and you’ll get granular control down to like 4 decimal places and it tremendously slows down the input from the mouse. You’ll see a ghosted out little slider appear in the slider window. Don’t think it works for sliders that have fixed ranges of flat out 1-100 steps but for those that go deep into the decimals it worked for each one. A good example to try is right to the right of the Depth slider in any BPR filter you’ll see a Depth Exponent slider (Depth Exp) and you can get a granular control slider to appear there to start you off.

Never knew this myself, never seen it mentioned anywhere and that’s the thing about Zbrush, it’s probably there you just don’t know about it or it’s a gestural thing or whatever. Cool though, not sure how useful it will be to me but it’s good to have another trick in the bag for sure!

[system]

Really appreciate your extra input. This is totally the solution I was seeking.

Here is a snip of the Horizontal Offset for the Map1 position that illustrates slider UI changes, via the hover click (at top of white bar). Notice the extra orange box at top, when toggled to ‘fine adjustment’.

default (coarse) adjustment

fine adjustment

The toggle between coarse and fine seems ‘sticky’. The same hover-slight delay-click process toggles between the two. The fine adjustment seems effective for coarse adjustments too. Not sure of the precise toggle conditions (hover time, location, off vs. on, etc.).

The following useful tools for interface screen shots seems worth mentioning here:

• Windows has a ‘Snipping tool’. (click the windows icon then type snip…) Includes optional ‘delay’ setting.
• Flashback Express (Windows) is a super-useful, free screen recording tool.

Thanks again for your help, Extra Dimensional!