ZBrushCentral

Combining layers doesn't work right.

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

It’s a shame cause it would have worked great for posing. But it doesn’t work that way.

If I raise my model’s arm, and save it in a layer, and then I try to move the arm down just a bit, not to it’s original position, but just a little down, it won’t work, it does lower the arm, but it also makes it smaller. :frowning:

Also if I want to combine two layers, say I have a layer with the character raising his arm, and the other layer has the character twisting the forearm, I can’t combine cause it won’t have the arm raised and the forearm twisted, it’’ just make a really different deformation.

If I do this when the visibility is on, it’ll work but it’s not practical, for example, if I have a layer with a character with his arm up, and while that layer is on, I create a new layer and twist his arm, I can now turn that layer off and he will still have his arm up, but it’s not twisted anymore.

The problem is that if I try turning on the layer where he is twisting his arm, without first turning on the layer where he is raising it up, meaning he has his arm down, it won’t twist the arm, it’ll make a weird deformation. It’s not practical because I would need to make 2 layers, one for the arm twisting while the arm is down, and one for the arm twisting when the arm is up.

I really hope something like this is included in 3.5, it would make posing so much easier.

#2

why not just do a zsphere rig and pose your model?

I don’t really expect animation type tools and work flows in a sculpting program. If you’re really that into it, you could always export out your model and rig and then pose it in another program as well. Just having the traspose tools and zsphere rigging is great. While the animation tool sets would be great, I am more than willing to give those up for Zbrushes amazingly intuitive sculpting tools.

#3

It’s not like it’s an entire workflow we are talking about here. If they really didn’t want you to pose your figures, rigging and transposing, and especially transpose master wouldn’t have been included. They are also more complicated than what I’m talking about.

You can already combine layers, just that it doesn’t work very well for posing. They have all these great tools, for posing already, I’m sure a tweak to the way layers work would allow you to combine them. Maybe keep them the way they work now and add another way too. No reason to keep things limited just because it’s mainly a “modeling” software.

#4

on that account I agree. I was just saying, I would rather they put most of their time and energy into streamlining the sculpting, rather than having them put effort and resources into the posing or secondary tools. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see the layer ability, but I would think that should go more into having more than one morph target and a better way to blend between those morphs procedurally…but if they have a way, either in morphs or layers I will welcome it.

#5

mmm I am not seeing this with my models.

I am able to create a layer, rotate my characters arm up. Create a new layer and twist his arm. And turn them both on and off individually get the results that you would expect.

There is no real combine feature with layers. You can delete a layer while it is visible which bakes down the layer into the mesh. It doesn’t collapse it down into the previous layer though (I am also not seeing any odd distortions with this method).

The only time I see anything close to what you might be describing is when I have perspective turned on. But its not a “weird deformation” it just moves my model a bit.

Can you post pictures?

#6

yes this needs pictures because your explanation is mind numbing. no offense. layers work as a hierarchy so yes if you select layer 3 with layer 2 off and you had worked on layer 3 with 2 on then its going to be messed up.
if you want to combine layers, so like L01 arm up and L02 twist, the best way to do that is to have both on, store a morph target, then switch off whichever(L02 most likely) then use the morph brush to paint that twist back into the first layer.
i don’t know if that helps because as i said i’m not entirely sure what you’re asking.
also remember that layers only remember where verts are in xyz space, not how they got there, that’s why if you turn down the intensity of a layer you get strange deformations instead of fluid movement like a arm going up and down.

#7

Nah it’s simple.

This is what I mean.

-Character has arms down.
-I make a layer and then raise his arm.
-I turn off the layer (now the character has his arm down again)
-I make another layer, and now twist the forearm of that same arm.
-I try turning both layers on at the same time to see if I can have the arm up and at the same time the forearm twisted.

  • Doesn’t work.

That’s all. Yeah I understand what you mean spaceboy. I made the topic just to see if anybody knew of a method to do this. But this would be cool if implented though. A different layer that adapts to the new position, and makes the changes accordingly would be great. Maybe this is possible via scripting? I have no scripting knowledge so meh.

Ty for the responses.