ZBrushCentral

Scale settings nightmare

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi there, I work primarily making stuff for print in toys industry. As such, maintaining a consistent scale is EXTREMELY important to me. Scale is a setting I literally never touch, yet it constantly changes. The fact that Dynamesh’s object resolution changes (not numerically but density wise) in response to scaling up or down, means that the Zbrush “world” has its own scale.

Yet you can have two objects that visually occupy the exact same space, BUT measure drastically different, due to their “scale” setting. This is a nightmare because I never know when I’m in crunch time, and I export a file if my client will be getting something they can use. Last month I had an issue with the print exporter export something a few mm larger than it should have been and I didnt catch that error in my double check because scaling issues are usually extreme.

The plot further thickens when you have an articulated figure with 50+ parts. I need this to be consistent please.
Here is an issue I’m running into now. Within the same file I’m getting a scale change after running decimation master, which is a first for me. Picture 1) Shows the current subtool polycount AND scale.

Attachments

Untitled-1.jpg

Untitled-2.jpg

#2

Is it at all possible to make it so scale remains consistent? I’m not sure what to suggest to make that happen. I just know that in other modeling packages, Maya for example, has its own world space. Meaning an a sphere with Scale of 10, and a sphere with a scale of 1 will always look different a different size. And giving a scale of 1 to any upscaled object will bring it back to original, this is perhaps not impossible in zbrush, but entirely cumbersome.

#3

I’ve exported and re imported the figure in about 10 pieces. All were originally (automatically) on the -16.### scale, and they have reimported into zbrush reading now at 53.46###. Exact same files. Zbrush world reads it as the same measurement though, through transpose. Is there any science behind this or way to understand what is happening?

#4

There is a specific plugin to deal with problems of scale as yours:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?199136-Calipers-Master-v2-Real-size-measuring-tools-Unnoficial-Plugin

Apart of that keep in mind scale depends of two factors:


  • The size indicated in the tool->geometry->scale menu
  • And this will be modified also by tool->export values

The scale will be the result of the interaction of both. The difference is that the one in geometry is the local size of the specific subtool when the export value affects equally all subtools included in that specific tool. Other tools can have another export value. When you append a subtool to a tool it will be affected by these export values. If for example the subtool is 1.20 and the export value is 2 the result will be 2.40

You can double check periodically if any of them changes, and you can restore the values manually or using copy paste plugins done by Marcus for both values.

I agree scale in Zbrush is confusing.

#5

Thank you Atlea, I will check that plugin out!