ZBrushCentral

Beginner Question about understanding the Tools/Meshes

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hello,

i just bought Zb and i have a problem with understanding how the tools or meshes work.
I saw the Classroom tutorials but have not found an answer.

So, when i add a mesh, it adds itself to the tools on the right toolbar.

I tried to polypaint a mesh, (only clicked polypaint->colorize), but the mesh was transformed
somehow in 2.5D mode and i could not paint over it, each click added the mesh again.
At some point my “Brush” was a 2D Projection of the selected Model from the toolbar.
I could not the edit button again, it was greyed out.
I cleared the canvas (ctrl+n) and could not add anything anymore, even when having
a model (from the right toolbar) or else, selected. The canvas or viewport stayed blank.

Id like to have some different parts of my sculpts (for example a helmet/parts of an armor),
organized to “select” them and edit them without affecting the other parts and keeping them
separated.

In other Programs i use, everything is arranged through visible/render layers or groups and Zb is different
to understand here for me.

Another short question i have about ZSpheres: When im finished doing a sketch with ZSpheres, i press A
to transform them into a mesh. How do i subdivide this mesh for further detailed sculpting?
The options are greyed out.

#2

in your first case, you might try ‘drawing’ your selected mesh or tool out on the canvas - just click and hold in the canvas area and drag downwards. Once you have the mesh there then go into edit mode by pressing ‘t’. If that’s not working you’ve gone into another mode somehow depending on the order you’ve clicked certain buttons - it’s probably easier to restart if that’s the case until you get more familiar with it.

if you do lose your mesh completely, pressing ‘f’ can help ‘frame’ the mesh. sometimes you’ll need to press ‘f’ more than once.

pressing ‘a’ doesn’t create the adaptive skin, just shows a preview. there’s a ‘make adaptive skin’ button just below. when you press that the skin appears in your tool pallet up at top of the menu. select that and then you’ll be able to divide.

#3

You might like to take a look at the online docs which sets out some of the basic concepts:
http://docs.pixologic.com/getting-started/basic-concepts/

#4

Thanks, i think i understand it better now, just wondering why i cant delete some primitives from the tools list (for example the polymesh one).

Ok, got that. But how can i subdivide a skinned ZSphere even more, there are no more levels to add after i made an adaptive skin out of a Zsphere (which i retopologized another model with)?

#5

The basic ones can’t be deleted. There is a clean tool script to remove all but the selected tool on the forums kicking around. To subdivide, look in the Geometry palette.

#6

Oh, its greyed out after applying the adaptive skin to the zsphere.
So no more higher levels possible?

#7

After pressing Tool>Adaptive Skin>Make Adaptive Skin you need to select the new skinned version in the Tool palette. It will have a name beginning Skin_.

#8

Alright, got it. Thanks for the help.

#9

Any chance of a linky please Doug? The forum search isn’t doing it for me.

#10

Here’s one of them. http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?164728-Clean-Tool-Master-(with-Dynamesh-Project)-unofficial-Information-Installation
And the one I first referred to here http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?176896-How-to-clean-the-excess-3D-Meshes-in-the-tool-palette-Answered&p=1011378&viewfull=1#post1011378

#11

Thanks Doug.