ZBrushCentral

Zbrush Brush Limits? (Hotkey B)

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I recently added on more brushes into my presets folder like always, and not all of them displaying now (using hot key ‘b’). It appears Ive reached some form of limit.

I emailed pixologic and their response was:

"You should not have added any files into any of ZBrush’s default installed folders at all. That is exactly why we created the Lightbox. By adding all of those in, it causes ZBrush to have to load them into system memory each time as it is starting up. This has the effect of also causing some key features of ZBrush to not be able to fully load into system memory and will lead to not only software instability but also corrupt saves and corrupt model files. You will want to revert everything you have added in before you encounter corruptions that will result in a loss of work. Any and all extra downloaded files need to be kept in a directly outside of ZBrush which you then map to using the Lightbox feature.

The ZStartup folder does allow you to put extra files into it, but that was set up ONLY as a quick convenience and temporary repository for an artist to place a few tools to load up that they are using for a particular project at the time. It should never have more than 25 items added into it at any given time."

Okay thats terrific and all but Ive never had any issue even with a ton of brushes in there, and I use zbrush daily. So is there a work around/setting I can change to increase the amount of brushes that will display? Because using lightbox is incredibly slow, by comparison.

#2

The ZData folder contents should never be changed. Ever. These are items that ZBrush relies on and expects to always be present.

The ZStartup folders are limited to 25 items of any given type. Adding any more than that risks unexpected behavior. It might work for some file types but more than likely it will break the UI. These folders are meant for items that you need on a constant basis. They are not intended as a single place where you dump everything you happen to like and might use at some point in time. For one thing, because everything you put in those folders is loaded by ZBrush whenever it launches, that is memory that won’t be available for the things you actually use ZBrush for – like sculpting multi-million polygon models. The more you try to put in the ZStartup folders, the more poorly ZBrush will perform. And as you’re seeing, when you put in too many brushes then the brush palette simply cannot hold everything. It wasn’t programmed for it.

There are not any workarounds for that. It’s simply the way that ZBrush is designed.

The vast majority of your downloaded resources should go in one of the “ZFolders” found within the main ZBrush directory. For example, most of your brushes should go in C:\Program Files (x86)\Pixologic\ZBrush 4R7\ZBrushes rather than in C:\Program Files (x86)\Pixologic\ZBrush 4R7\ZStartup\BrushPresets. There are big benefits to this:


  • You’re not going to break your UI by putting too many files in the ZStartup directory.
  • You’re not sucking up system resources.
  • Everything in this directory is available through LightBox. That gives you:

    1. Quick access
    2. Bigger thumbnails, so that you can more readily find what you’re looking for.
    3. Organization, since LightBox respects the subfolders within each ZFolder.

Thanks!

#3

I received a similar response from support so Ill copy paste my response:

Its a very interesting response, to be honest. Yes, Im not an experienced zbrush user as I only have about 200 hours into it so far. But, during that time, Ive used apparently well over the limit of the safe zone of brushes without any downside whatsoever. I sculpt at around 8 million polys before decimating, on average, like the models below as an example.

promoedited.jpg
promoedited.jpg2690×1338 625 KB

What you’re telling me/asking me is that the self imposed limit is for my own good and that theres no moving around it…this is kind of a strange stance. For example, lets say I did begin to suffer issues, wouldnt the issue be resolved simply by removing excess brushes from the

presets folder? For this zombie board game I used about 30 brushes regularly across 60 models and several detailed structures. I have the hotkeys memorized for them, and lets say next project Im sculpting massive amounts of aliens…now I have to either delete my now familiar

brushes that I know and love in favor for the ones more geared towards the new project, OR manually seek out each brush in lightbox which crushes the workflow without there being some form of quick access keying, like the brush palette currently has.

I get your answer and why the limit is there, but Im saying that limit should be something the user is allowed to up at their own risk of performance issues, especially since not all computer rigs are the same. I dont think me being a new user has anything to do with this, its odd that this is a hard limit that cant be modified.

Light box is okay for brush selection, but its absolutely incomparable to the brush palette.

#4

|I agree with this completely.
|
The inability to not only remove unwanted brushes (of which there are far too many in my opinion) and a limit on how many ought to be added is terrible. Using lightbox sucks, its beyond cumbersome, and finding things in it is a waste of time.
This is an old problem, its probably the same age as not being able to use the mousewheel.

Nice zombies by the way, I cant believe Im saying that (zombies are not my thing), but that was a cool image.|

#5

I have 35 custom brushes in the brush presets folder, and everything is fine for now… :slight_smile:

#6

I have a whole bunch too, but it makes the whole menu even more cluttered, but Im glad its not causing you problems!