Still very hard to do wires in Zbrush !

[Atlant]

Hi !

I’m not sure if that’s the place to post Zbrush feature suggestions
I want to somehow convey idea to developers .

Zbrush is amazing but some simple stuff is still hard to do …
It’s a bad that you can’t bent long tube more easier than it’s possible with existing tools.

As an example I had electrical asset to do some time ago, it was full of wires
it’s a nightmare when you want to bent wires as you want them to be in space.
Even more nightmare comes when you trying to connect wire jack into receivers hole and maintain rest of its body
masking kind of a solution in that case but it’s not as good as it can be.

I’m not saying it’s not doable , it’s possible , but not a level of Zbrush - it should keep up with rest of its tools.
After so much years of developing Zbrush you could simplify that tubing (spline/sweep) workflow in 2019

Maybe “Wire Editor” or something like that , Maybe make it as a plugin.

Best Regards !

[Spyndel]

Not sure if you’re interested in tips, but the trick, I find, when trying to make a complicated tube that bends along multiple axes in 3d space, is to sculpt a quick guide object first.

It doesn’t have to be pretty, so just snakehook out a blob of clay with dynamesh or sculptris mode. All it has to do is establish the general curvature you want for your wire. Much easier to sculpt that curve when you dont have to worry about form, than to wrestle with the dragging and pulling stroke curves in open air. I agree that the curve stroke adjustment functions are mostly unusable for anything other than a tube that only bends on a 2d plane.

Once your rough guide object is established, THEN use the curve tube snap brush to draw out a curve with uniform proportions along that object, and delete the guide object.

[marcus_civis]

Curves are a good way:

[youtubehd]8wOkzy7VHAc[/youtubehd]

[Atlant]

Thanks you Spyndel , marcus_civis for your inputs.

I tried as you described Spyndel , I tried literally all possible solutions and came to conclusion that
it’s easier to import splinework from max and add noise and connectors after , and then go back and put in those holes
and then come again to Zbrush and etc etc … As I described it was nightmare.

All you are saying is still workarounds. And you asked “Not sure if you’re interested in tips” that’s correct question because as I said, it’s doable and I was able to do what I wanted to do.
But problem is amount of time and effort it takes to do simple wires that are bent as I wanted them to be (I also had some irregularity noise on wires to depict that there is something inside those wires)

I would just ask you to tell devs if it’s possible , maybe they will pay some attention to it , please !
I do game assets and work on interior scenes with all that equipment inside.
From my years of work experience I can tell that almost 50% of interior assets have wires on it )) it’s funny but that’s the way it is in practice.

[Spyndel]

@Atlant

Please don’t mistake this for arguing with you. A suggestion is a suggestion, and I don’t really disagree with you…the curve editing functions need to be more precise and intuitive.

I do however disagree with this:

All you are saying is still workarounds.

The Curve Tube Snap brush is specifically designed to draw curves along a guide object. It is working as intended, and is the best way to approach drawing complex curves, rather than editing a spline in mid air. I did however omit a lot of information that makes this easier to do, so even if you are not interested, I will post this here for anyone else who is interested in the topic:

1. Obviously, you need to be comfortable grouping, masking, and hiding polygons at will in Zbrush. If these functions aren’t as natural as breathing for someone, they will likely struggle with a great many things in ZB. Likewise, if someone is not comfortable sculpting in zb (snakehook, smooth, inflate, move, etc) then sculpting guide objects wont feel very simple to you.

2. When drawing curves, increase the Stroke >Curve > Curve Step slider value as high as possible, to keep the curve as smooth and simple as possible. When sculpting guide object, remesh frequently to keep the polycount low, and consider giving them a quick Zremesh at the end to reduce surface complexity.

3. Turn on ghost mode when drawing the curves to ghost all subtools save for the guides–this allows you to conform the curve to the guide objects and nothing else, while still seeing where everything is.

I did this about as quickly as I could edit a spline someplace else and mess around with import/export–it took me longer to write this actual post:

Some people are more comfortable in certain types of toolsets, and prefer the precision of working with more mathematical, mechanical tools. I prefer approaches like this, because it keeps me in the ZB mindset–a sculpting mindset.

[Knacki]

I am with Atlant!
zBrush Curves are nice, sometimes funny, (I love how they look when one is dragging them around a mesh, like a wet worm, a living one) but not always effective.
And not really precise, as spyndel examples shows quite well.
I guess there is nothing better than curves for quick layouts - in most cases - but switching to a decent control system is a must imho.
The need for a spline system with precision controls is everywhere in zBrush.
If it is trim curves, new spotlight to 3D everything curve based should be two level, classic curve and something like bezier.
The basic ideas are mostly very good in zBrush, often revolutionary, but the consequent execution in perfect usability in different, easy to understand ways with a decent UI.
I don’t know what going wrong there with Pixologic wizards.
Sometimes it seems to me that there are brilliant chefs working in Pixologic kitchen, but no wants do do the boring dishes.

[Spyndel]

And not really precise, as spyndel examples shows quite well.

I have no idea why you’re shitting on what I just did. How precise do you need them to be? I exerted like zero effort in less time than it took to write the post, and easily got them to line up with plugs on opposite sides of the object, with complicated intertwining along multiple axes, and I did it with intuitive sculpting and brush strokes, rather than artificial ropes and pulleys and complicated gizmos.

Want them to be even smoother? Use fewer steps in the curve. Want them to be dead center in the plugs, which I didn’t care about? take a second and nudge them into place–as long as you keep them low poly, minor corrections wont deform the tube.

Again, not arguing that the curve edit controls aren’t bad–I personally think they’re mostly garbage and avoid them altogether. They could definitely benefit from improvement, although they wouldn’t crack my top 50 on a priority list. Just pointing out that simple wires are easy as long as you’re using Zbrush to its strengths (sculpting and hand-worked form), instead of expecting it to perform like a traditional polygonal modeler. We use ZB precisely because it doesn’t perform like one of those, and can do things that those programs cant. Stop fixating on what other programs do (because they cant do it any other way), and start thinking with the tools at hand.

[Knacki]

Wasn’t meant to sound like that, sorry.

Anyway, no one would mention Bezier splines if zBrush curves would 100% work like they should.
These guys are stealing my lifetime as lots of other workarounds in zBrush.
Why shouldn’t one wish this to end?

“Thinking means comparing!”
Walther Rathenau, politician.

[lukasso]

@spyndel thanks, I was looking for some way like this