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The man-made world is filled with symmetry. You find it in designs of all kinds, such as detailing on furniture (like headboards or chair backs), embroidered designs, logos, furnace grates, even something as simple as a ceiling vent. If a designer wants to make something look fancy, odds are good that symmetry will come into the picture. Of course, for modelers and texture artists (both game and movies), incorporating such details into your work will often provide additional realism and believability.
Symmetrical painting can be a really powerful way to make use of ZBrush’s 2.5D painting features. It has a wide variety of uses, and is incredibly easy to do! The techniques covered in this tutorial will show you ways to create symmetrical designs for texturing – and even another way to create symmetrical models!
This simplest way to create symmetry from your canvas is to simply duplicate the layer (Layer :small_orange_diamond: Dup), flip it (Layer :small_orange_diamond: Flip H or Flip V) and then merge it again (Layer :small_orange_diamond: Mrg). The examples below show the kind of results you can achieve. The initial layer is at the left, and on the right is what you end up with after mirroring both horizontally and vertically.
[[attach=14662]SimpleMirror.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714616%27,%27SimpleMirror.jpg%27,1,0%29)
Part of the strength of this form of symmetry is that colors and depth information can interact in interesting ways, creating levels of detail that would be quite difficult to work out any other way. Even a simple doodle can very quickly become an interesting image.
IMPORTANT: Before merging layers, always make sure that Mrgb and Zadd are active in the Draw palette.
So far, we’ve seen how to create a form of symmetry where the canvas depth information overlaps itself. But what if you want to have perfectly mirrored symmetry with no overlap? Well, that’s very easy to achieve as well!
To get this kind of symmetry, you need to look at the entire canvas as only the left half of the finished result (or for four-way symmetry, the upper left corner. The canvas edges become the lines across which your painting will be mirrored:
[[attach=14663]MirrorPoints.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714617%27,%27MirrorPoints.jpg%27,1,0%29)
When painting, you will only paint the portion of your design that lies on one side of the mirroring plane. Here’s an example:
[[attach=14664]LeftSide.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714618%27,%27LeftSide.jpg%27,1,0%29)
As you can see, I’ve created the left side of the design, only. The right edge of the canvas is the line across which the design will be mirrored.
Next, we make use of ZBrush’s Crop feature to double the size of the canvas without scaling the design. First, turn off Document 
Pro. That way, you can change the canvas width without changing the height (or vice versa). Since we’re doing horizontal symmetry, double the setting for the canvas width, and then press Document Crop. Here are the results:
[[attach=14665]Mirrored1.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714619%27,%27Mirrored1.jpg%27,1,0%29)
For vertical symmetry, you'd simply double the height rather than the width.
It’s now a snap to mirror the design. First, duplicate the layer. Second, flip the duplicated layer horizontally. Finally, make sure that Mrgb and Zadd are active before merging the layers again. Presto! Instant symmetry.
[[attach=14666]Mirrored2.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714620%27,%27Mirrored2.jpg%27,1,0%29)
This could be used in a variety of ways, such as creating a 3D (well, 2.5D) logo design.
In my case, I decided to take things a little bit farther. I mirrored the canvas and merged it again, as per the first symmetry method covered in this tutorial, above.
[[attach=14667]Mirrored3.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714621%27,%27Mirrored3.jpg%27,1,0%29)
As you can see, by combining both methods of creating symmetry, it’s possible to develop some very complex designs in short order!
Now let’s look at some ways that the results of these techniques can be used in other work. I mean, so far we just have a pretty canvas. But there are plenty of times when you’d like to use a symmetrical design within a project.
The first thing I did is use the MRGBZGrabber tool. Starting in the exact center of the canvas, I dragged the selection box to just barely extend past the edge of my design. This gave both a texture and a depth grab. These can then be used in a variety of ways:
[[attach=14668]Applications1.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714622%27,%27Applications1.jpg%27,1,0%29)
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Here, the Deco Brush was used with the captured alpha and the Spectrum texture that’s included with ZBrush. I turned on Tool
Modifiers Tile Texture, and also set the Alpha Alpha Depth Factor Focal Shift to -100. This last step maximized the alpha contrast so that the colors of the texture painted very crisply. -
This is the same as #1, but with the Focal Shift set to 0 instead of -100. As you can see, the alpha is now using the canvas depth information to control the color intensity of the texture as it’s being painted.
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Again, the same as #1, but using the texture that had been captured by the MRGBZGrabber. This shaded texture gives a 3D appearance to the design that’s being painted. Imagine using this in your texturing, to create decorative edges and the like!
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This time, the captured alpha has been used as a Stencil for use in texturing or scene detailing. I used the Simple Brush, DragRectangle Stroke, and Alpha 00 to paint the design with a single brush stroke.
5) Same as #4, but using Draw :small_orange_diamond: Zsub to cut into the canvas, and Mrgb is turned off. Such an approach could be used with Projection Master's deformation painting feature to create very intricate designs on the surface of your high resolution models: [[attach=14669]Fancy.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714623%27,%27Fancy.jpg%27,1,0%29) -
Last of all is a case where the Stencil has been used with Zadd active and an imported stone texture. Such a technique could easily be used to add ornate carvings to a texture for a castle wall – or any other case where you wish to add interesting designs to your work.
There's yet another way in which your depth grab can be used, and that's to create a 3D model from it using Alpha :small_orange_diamond: Make 3D. What you're basically doing is taking the 2.5D depth from the original design and converting itinto a fully 3D model. Being able to lift what you paint up off the canvas and manipulate it as a fully 3D object opens a lot of doors that aren't possible in most other environments. It offers the power of extrusions, but with the added advantage of the caps being fully 3D rather than flat surfaces. This give dramatic results under a variety of lighting setups. [[attach=14660]3DSkin.jpg[/attach]](http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2714624%27,%273DSkin.jpg%27,1,0%29) The mesh at the lower right is the original 3D skin. To texture it, I simply pressed Tool :small_orange_diamond: Texture :small_orange_diamond: Uvp to change from the default UVTiles mapping to Planar. I then applied the captured texture created by the MRGBZGrabber tool.
Note: This is why for my original 2.5D design I first filled the canvas. That way, the texture extends beyond the edges of the 2.5D details. If I hadn’t done that, then the texture would have been mostly canvas grey, and that grey could have made it onto the edges of the 3D model.
The 3D model could of course be used for something like a company logo. For the fun of it, though, I applied a Twist deformation to it for the results seen in the other three instances shown above, all at different angles.
And that concludes this mini-tutorial! Hopefully it has sparked some creative neurons for you, so that you can begin using ZBrush’s 2.5D symmetry capabilities in your own work.
Happy ZBrushing! :)
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That is really sweet, thanx Aurick!!! 
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