annoying zbrush interface [Answered]

system · November 24, 2011, 11:40pm

Hello I have been using zbrush for a few weeks now and there are some things that I am finding very annoying. The first thing is that when I fit an object to the window by pressing the F key the object always fits bigger than the window. Part of the object is always hidden off the window. Is there any setting to adjust how big the object becomes when it is fit to the window?

Also I am finding just rotating the view of the object, moving the view of the object and zooming in and out to be tedious. Why do you have to click on blank space to rotate the view? What if there is no blank space? To zoom in and out why do you have to start by clicking blank space with the option key, start moving and then hold the control key to start zooming? This seems very convoluted for such a common task. Is there any way to adjust this behavior in zbrush?

Thanks,
-Joe

zber2 · November 25, 2011, 4:10am

Don’t know about your first problem because Frame always worked for me. As to your other problem, see image below.

marcus_civis · November 25, 2011, 4:11am

Try out this Fit Mesh macro to see if it helps.
ZBrush has two navigation methods. The standard ‘ZBrush’ way and the ‘Right-click’ way. You may find Right-click navigation works better for you:
Right-click+drag to rotate.
Ctrl+Right-click+drag to scale.
Alt+Right-click+drag to pan.

For Right-click navigation to work you must have the Preferences>Interface>RightClick Navigation button enabled.

marcus_civis · November 25, 2011, 4:12am

Or use zber2’s way.

system · November 25, 2011, 1:40pm

zber2,

Thank you for the info. That is helpful. I had not noticed that white line before because my window has a big gray boarder around the image area. I think this gray area covers up the white line. I am not sure what this gray area is for. It seems like a waste of space. The gray boarder area may be responsible for my zoom problem too. Perhaps the F key zooms the object to fit in the whole window and then the edges are covered by the gray area.

marcus_civis,

Thank you for the link to your macro. I will go through that thread to see what other useful macros are available. I like how easy it is to make and edit macros in zbrush. I was able to change you macro to get more of a zoom out which I think I like.

One thing about rotating the view that I don’t understand yet is how to rotate the view along the axis of view. I am not sure what these rotation axeses are called in zbrush. I can rotate the view left and right or up and down. In lightwave this would be called rotating on the heading and pitch. The third angle is called bank and that is the one I would like to find out how to change. Say you have a mesh of a building and and its tipped at an angle. How do you rotate your view so that the building is vertical?

Thanks,
-Joe

zber2 · November 25, 2011, 2:45pm

system · November 25, 2011, 9:01pm

zber2,

Thanks for the explanation. That helps a lot. I am used to a different 3d program and it is taking some adjusting to get used to the zbrush way of doing things.

-Joe