ZBrushCentral

Rotation animation question

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

hi guys,
I’m having problem animating the rotation of my subtool, where during the animation… the subtool for some reason scales down and up. I have a Lock model and want to animate the lock mechanism opening and closing (the lock hook basically just rotates from a bottom pivot). I’m using Layers to do this animation where the lock is closed by default, and when the Layer is visible, the lock is rotated to show that the model is unlocked.
With 2 key frames on the time line for the visibility of the Layer, the subtool does animate the motion, but for some reason the subtool scales down slightly and scales back up during the rotation.
Any one have this problem as well or know how to fix it?

I’ve tested this on a simple cube and same issue happens

Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

#2

I’d probably just animate the hook and not try to use the layers. I don’t use them and I’ve heard they can cause some problems.

#3

Thanks for replying so quick Doug!
How do I animate the subtool without layers? I thought zbrush didn’t have that option since i didn’t see a timeline track option for transpose or something like that in Movie>TimeLine Tracks
I’ve been trying to figure out if that was possible in zbrush and animating using layers was the closest option i found online.

thanks again :slight_smile:

#4

Edit, Link and Enable are below that :wink:

#5

sorry not too sure what you mean :wink:
i see those Edit, Link and Enable buttons but how do I use them to animate the subtool’s rotation or position?
Pretty much just want to somehow animate it like in Maya or sth like that… key the first pose, rotate it, then set another key to have it animated

have only seen tutorials online for making turntables or using Layers that work like blendshapes

thanks :smiley:

#6

Are you clicking Record first?

#7

didn’t click Record first.
What i just tried (with all the zbrush image and overlay images off):

  1. press Record 2. rotate the subtool with Transpose Tool. 3. click Pause. 4. click Play Movie. 5. shows a video of my subtool rotating but show my mouse as a red square (would be best if it doesn’t show my mouse)

Is this the method you’re recommending?
This method can work if I only have 1 subtool to animate, but what if i have other subtools to animate at same time as well?

Thanks again for helping me out. Would be nice to be able to do these simple animations for presentation directly in zbrush than moving everything into Maya

#8

I’m in agreement that the tools provided don’t provide the functionality we’re used to. They could stand some more work. There are new functions in the ZScript now that might make it better. Hopefully sooner than later.

#9

hmm alright. looks like theres no best way to do this with zbrush right now then. hope they add animation options to simple things like rotation and move soon :slight_smile:
thanks tho! much appreciated!

#10

if I understand your problem I think I know how to do it. But I am not sure about what you are trying to achieve …
Could you upload some images?

#11

When you use layers to rotate the mesh ,You are only morphing from one shape to the other and all the vertex move in a straight line from the initial shape to the final one , they don’t follow the circular trayectory you performed in the rotation. I am sure someone can explain it better .
But you can use a simple zsphere rig , bind it and use the layers on that Zsphere rig . I think that should work. I will try to test it later

#12

Thanks Dargelos! I’ll give that a try too.
I’ve been able to do rotation animation with Layers on some subtools, but it doesn’t always work… some subtools still rotate with weird scaling issues. A graph editor in zbrush would be nice haha

#13

heres some screenshot of the issue. hope it explains the problem. its just simply rotating the subtool with Layers
zbrush_rotateIusse.jpg