Check out the Smooth Curve in the Brush palette.
change it to the form of a skate ramp ;p instead of the hill atm.
nlloyd seems to have a point about the spacing in the stroke pallette - grayed out here as well 
no matter which stroke I select.
yeah i noticed it by myself, the smooth brush reacts very very strange, like flatten brush. i didnt need to change anything for the smooth brush in zb 3.0
anyone got the same problem with tha strange NOT BUMPY materials… which are showin up only when hittin render/best…
???
k0s
All this makes me feel quite uncertain, and wondering if I didn’t install this update too quickly? Perhaps I better reinstall 3.0 and wait untill all this has been cleared out.
I’m not (yet) at a level to use ZMapper and I guess it’s better to continue learning in 3.0 as all tutorials, the wiki, the pdf,…are for that version. I had expected a bugfixer plus ZMapper and ZappLink, not an overhaul inwhich I have to do things that are still misty. (I too found that the smooth brush reacts more like a flattener and was wondering that it was smoother in 3, but didn’t want to bring this up as it could be my interpretation.)
just give it a try… maybe a second and a third. i think its better to get familiar with it, than resignatin 
sure the actual pdf’s and wikis are more complete … but eh, this update needs some time to lie down in our hands to update the wiki as example by us customers.
at least feel free to ask if you are unsure where is what or how to do things like in v3. i think you would be happy with a more stable version, where you can play around with longer…
my opinion
k0s
to be honest i cant recommend this update.
New interface = Awesome
I’m not sure about bugs yet as I have very little time to play around, but the design changes to the interface are worth the .1 alone. 3.0 just felt like an overweight man who’d been to the gym to work out (after aquiring some new skills), and had come out having gained weight. Using 3.1, I feel like I’m using a well toned, super-fit athlete, who has even more new tricks up his sleeve. I’m sure 3.1 will have its fair share of issues as time rolls on, but the interface… boy do I love it.
just want to chime in amongst the hysteria to say that the update is working pretty great on my end. the only consistent oddity i’ve found is that holding shift to smooth with some brushes (mallet, ram, tracks1…) seems to do the opposite of smoothing–it looks like it’s sharpening or exaggerating the underlying mesh.
anyway, loving it for the most part. being able to quickly assign brushes to number keys is fantastic, for example. thanks for all the hard work.
smooth does that displacement thing when you have “sub” set on the brush.
I’m with MattSilverstein on this one. Z3.1 is everything I dreamed about Z3 and much more. The new interface is pretty. If you got problem with Z3.1 is that you might be running on XP. Try upgrading to Vista and all of your stability problem will go away. I can generate 8k dispmap merely in minutes with Z3.1 whereas it’d take hours on the same system with Z2. Plus several crashes. I was still using XP at the time. Upgraded to vista not long after Z3.0 release.
Btw, docChaos, the brushes you’re complaining about is of two different purposes. The brush button is for editing meshes while the other is the tool button for editing on the canvas. They’re supposed to look like that.
You can assign ANY other brush under Shift key. Just press it and then choose your brush. Now everytime you press Shift it will switch to that one.
The only thing it lacks is possibility to change it`s intensity value while holdin Shift pressed.
LOL.
this update has some great technical advancec for which i say thanks 
.
but the more I look at the software the more i feel that this is targeted towards the average hobby artists and not the production artists. it started as a hobbyist tool and the latest update looks more like that.
almost 50% of the features in the software are pretty much useless for any professional work and all these silly little things makes the over all software slower in performance.
I wish i could get stripped down version with simple windows interface and no fancy stuff.
honestly, what practical use does a bubble like, pretty color interface have in a production environment?
after hours and hours infront of a software, a nice software look gets rid of monotony. ( well not really, but if all software looked like ass, you might feel bored/un-inspired ). its like saying that it doesnt matter how your room is arranged in which you are working in. after a while its good to change up the surrounding environment.
w0rd!
same here…
after havin “SOOOOOOOME” crashes i will install now on vista… i should have thrown away that crappy xp box long tima ago… now its time for 
feureau: i was pointin out where the “rake” is located for another user…
but i like to know, why ther’s no “structure” while assignin “structured materials” to tools… compare my 2 screens pls.
zb2:i simply drawup a box, assigned material and voila… bumps
zb3: i simply brake my fingers… kiddin … draw up a box, assigned a bumpy material and voila… nottin … no structure or bumps… only alphalook styled… i ve to press render(best) to see structure on it. i think its a kind of setup difficult. dunno i got no clue why.
thnx
k0s
Technically great update! besides some bugs like the weird shift-smooth behaviour on some brushes. Hate to say, but dislike the interface changes. the icons are not very eye and brain friendly IMHO, the brush icons all look the same somehow. Didnt like the mouse over popups and mat previews either. ill get used to it and the tech updates are certainly well worth it.
PS: would love to see an update on the alpha and texture browsers from Marcus! Thats what i miss most!
I’m getting an inconsistent behavior between switching brushes with hotkeys. Sometimes they reset, sometimes they borrow alphas, intensities, etc. from each other.
Anyone can confirm this?
not exactly.
simple interface could be compared to a room wich is organized, clean with very little items, but zb3 interface can be compared to a room painted with pretty colors, posters every decoration pieces everywhere.
besides, an interface was never a source of inspiration for me, artworks by other great artists are.
If anyone’s interested I set up a challenge thread for 3.1 users to come up with images that show various things they’ve found out.
I’m interested to see if someone can post something in there to show us how the Backface mask works,
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=382911&posted=1#post382911
Cheers.
I am so impressed with this.1 release. The new Brushes kick-ass.
As for the interface change, I will definitely be customizing it.
One thing I’ve noticed is the Backgroung gradient seems to no longer be saveable.