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Unable to open large ZPR file

Hi guys,

I’m on a trial version of zbrush as of now, and started on a project over night. I restarted my pc to find that the file is approx 3.3 gb large, and am now unable to open it in ZBrush. When trying to import it, zBrush gets stuck on ‘Loading Project Data…’ with a blue loading cursor. I previously tried bypassing ‘load undo history’ via preferences which worked the first time, but now doesn’t make a difference.

Is there a solution to this, or maybe a way to open the file in a different program so I can reduce the file size? I assume that the size has something to do with the saved undo history…that I wasn’t aware of when I first started on the project.

Extra info:

  • the most recent QuickSave file reacts the same as above
  • the oldest (first) QuickSave file opens fine.

Thanks for any advice,

S

Hello Skloss

That’s a fairly large file, and it will just depend upon your system specs as to whether you can open it at all. The file may have also become corrupted in some fashion, which can happen the closer the file size gets to your system limits.

By default, Zbrush doesn’t save undo history. You would have had to enable this for it to happen. Just remember that a Zbrush Project File saves ALL tools loaded into it, with all their subtools, and all those subtools have an individual undo history. So saving undos can rapidly bloat a large scene file, and I don’t recommend doing it casually.


I can’t promise you will ever be able to open that file again, but there are a couple things you can try.

  1. Open Zbrush in a fresh session, and open Lightbox ( , ) key by default. In the Lightbox Browser, find the Quicksave folder, and see if you can load any of the autosave file versions, if autosaving was enabled (it is by default).

  2. If the project file was created in the current version of Zbrush (older zprs may not work), try using the Tool > Load Tools from Project function.


If you can get any version of the file open, you want to save out your individual tools as tool files (Tool > Save as) immediately. Tool files save only the active tool, whereas a project file saves all tools, as well as quite a bit of scene information. It’s generally better to work on tools individually as much as possible if you will have a large, complex scene.

Read the following section of the documentation on Saving your work, and while you’re there, reading the entire “getting started” section may save you a few trips back to the forum.

H Spyndel,

thanks so much for the reply, I’ll look into the the system specs and the links you’ve listed and give this another shot. Autosaving was enabled for me unfortunately in the newer saves, so I assume it applies to this file as well.

The info about saving the tools out is very helpful, I’ll keep that in mind for future projects. If I can’t open this file ever again, it’ll at least serve as a good example to learn from. Thank you again, much appreciated.