ZBrushCentral

Issue using CTRL or SHIFT as modifiers for custom hotkeys

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi guys! This is my first post here! :slight_smile:

I’m learning ZBrush and have a question about custom Hotkeys.

If I create Hotkeys that use the SHIFT or CTRL modifiers I ever receive the “This brush will be selected as the sculpting smoothing-brush” and the “This brush will be selected as the active selection brush”

Of course I can press the “Skip this note until next restart” and those alerts no more appear (and the hotkeys, in fact, work fine)

But, why this occurs?

I understand that SHIFT and CTRL are important modifiers, used along the entire app. But I don’t understand why using these as hotkeys modifiers should launch that alert dialogs…

This is a real case:

I define next hotkeys to quickly launch a few useful brushes:

Move Brush — Opt+W

Move Topological — Opt+Shift+W

Move Elastic — Opt+Shift+Ctrl+W

Store these hotkeys.Quit ZBrush, open again and the first time I press Opt+Shift+W (to call for Move Topological brush) or Opt+Shift+Ctrl+W (to call for Move Elastic brush) I receive the alerts.

I press “Skip this note until next restart”, and now I can work my entire session without those alerts (even with any other hotkeys where SHIFT and CTRL are present, like Opt+Shift+S, Opt+Shift+Ctrl+S, Opt+Shift+C, Opt+Shift+Ctrl+C, etc, etc

Thanks for your feedback! :slight_smile:

Cristóbal Vila

#2

Hiya @Cristobal!

  • SHIFT is the modifier that activates the currently selected smoothing brush.

  • When you select a brush of the smoothing type, it becomes the active smoothing brush. You will be alerted to this.

  • While holding down SHIFT, any changes you make to the brush settings are applied to the active smoothing brush.

  • CTRL is the modifier that activates the currently selected Masking brush.

  • When you select a brush of the Masking type, it becomes the active Masking brush. You will be alerted to this.

  • While holding down CTRL, any changes you make to the brush settings are applied to the active Masking
    brush.

Does this clear things up?

1 Like
#3

Hi @Spyndel!

First of all: thank you so much for your quick and detailed response :slight_smile:

Yes I know the behavior for the SHIFT and CTRL modifiers that you have so kindly explained to me.

But the question is: does this mean that SHIFT and CTRL keys should never be used as part of a keystroke?

What perplexes me is that if I pretend to define the keystroke “OPT+SHIFT+W” to call a brush like “Move Topological”:

  1. The system let my to define it as a Hotkey and to store in my “StartupHotkeys.TXT”. No problem, no alerts.

  2. But the first time in a session that I call this brush (“Move Topological”, which in fact is NOT a smooth brush) I receive that alert: “This brush will be selected as the sculpting smoothing-brush” (why that alert? I’m not selecting a smooth brush…)

  3. Anyway, ok, I can press the “Skip this note until next restart” and then the keystroke works fine and my “Move Topological” brush is activated. Great.

  4. And from this moment on, and for that session, every time I invoke any other brush using a hotkey that includes “SHIFT” (like OPT+SHIFT+C or OPT+SHIFT+S, etc) the alert never appears again, and the brushes are activated without problems.

I can live doing always that: click on the option “Skip this note until next restart” the first time in each session.

But then, in any case and almost just as a curiosity: are keyboard shortcuts that include these two keys (SHIFT and CTRL) supposed never to be used in ZB?

Thanks for your patience! :slight_smile:

#4

I dont have problems when following the directions in the section entitled “assigning a brush to a hotkey.”

#5

Hi, Spyndel.

Yes, the steps described at that link is exactly how I create my keyboard shortcuts.

But then, a question:

If you create a hotkey to call a normal brush (not a smooth one), like for example “Clay” and define it as OPT+SHIFT+C, you don’t get the message “This brush will be selected as the sculpting smoothing-brush” the first time you press OPT+SHIFT+C in a session?

It’s only me?

#6

I’m sorry. I mentioned this in my original post, but perhaps I need to elaborate.

When you hold down shift or ctrl as part of a sequence you are telling zbrush that the next brush related change you are going to make is going to be related to the active smoothing brush or masking brush. If you make Shift, for instance, part of your key sequence, that will require you to hold down shift, and therefore be in “Smooth” mode as far as brush related changes go.

There are obviously potential conflicts there. So don’t do that. Instead, follow the directions I linked above for the proper way to assign a hotkey to a brush. Shift and Ctrl can successfully be used as part of a key sequence for many generic keyboard commands, but has a different context for brushes and brush-related functions.

1 Like
#7

OK, understood.

Recapitulating:

• SHIFT and CTRL are valid modifiers to use in ZBrush as part of any keyboard shortcut that is NOT related to brushes. No problems here.

• With the brushes you “can use” SHIFT and CTRL as part of any keyboard shortcut to activate a brush (it actually works). BUT that inevitably causes the above warning messages to appear. And they could also lead to some kind of conflict. So, better don’t use them.

Thank you so much for your help, Spyndel! I’m sure I’ll be back here with new questions in the near future :slight_smile:

Cristóbal Vila

#8

Shift, Ctrl and Alt are hard coded into ZBrush. You should avoid using any of those for hotkeys IMO.

#9

I know this post is old, but I found it through Google, so wanted to make sure anyone else that stumbles onto this post knows that the original poster was indeed correct. Z-Brush was doing something silly by complaining when he used his custom shortcut.

Anyway, the newer versions of Z-Brush do not complain when you use Ctrl or Shift as part of your shortcut to select a brush. It only complains when you attempt to select a masking or smoothing brush (in any way) without holding Ctrl or Shift (respectively).

That was the only point I wanted to make. These warnings no longer show up when you use Ctrl or Shift in your shortcuts. Personally, I think these complaints are all silly. If the user wants to assign a masking brush to his pen (or primary/left button), then let them. There’s no need to restrict Ctrl to masking and/or shift to smoothing. Let the user customize it.

And yes, I already see this happening in the future. I’m calling it now. A future Z-Brush release will indeed allow the user to set masking to Shift and/or Z-Modeler (or anything else) to Ctrl, etc. Just by allowing the user to select any specific brush while holding a specific modifier, Z-Brush can permit the user to “customize” what that modifier’s purpose is. Intuitive and flexible, with no warnings. For sculpters who use masking or smoothing less than traditionally, it gives them another entire functionality at their finger tips. And I think Z-Brush already has this capability for smoothing now. You can currently assign any brush to your Shift modifier, and use that in place of smoothing.

Haha, sorry for the rant. I’ve had a little too much coffee.

#10

Thank you so much for sharing these news, CoilNinja!
It’s really great to know that this issue is resolved.
Really appreciate your input :slight_smile: