digging deeper :: new questions

[system]

1)i’ve noticed that my models look different once exported to a program such as maya or max. my suspicion is that zbrushes camera is either orthograpic or at least very close to ortho. whats the status on this? is there a way to control the cameras field of view and or focal length?

2. i’m embarrassed to ask this, but how do i rotate a tool (i.e. 3d object) so that when i load it back in its oriented correctly. i imported a tool (.obj) and started messing with it (before i learned to set the import preferences to work better with maya). i just now realized that my tool is upside down (as viewed in the preview window and the tool palette). try as i might i can’t seem to flip the tools so its oriented “correctly.” i’ve tried every conceivable rotation command but its still upside down when i save and then reload it.

3)is there a “clone” tool similar to the one in photoshop? say i make a model of a face never using the symmetry tools. now the model is a little too asymmetrical. is there any way to clone one side into the other. i’m aware of the reSym tools, however i was hoping to have more control of where and how much the symmetry takes effect.

4)every time i restart zbrush is seems to reset its tablet setting such as “Tablet Size” and “Tablet Intensity.” How do you set it so ZBrush remembers my settings. I suspect the answer is going to be “edit the defaultzscript.TXT” however Using my very rudimentary Zscript skills i’ve tried to get this to work, but i’m clueless and it doesn’t.

5)sort of an abstract question. is there a way to scale an area (ie set of points or faces) along a common normal (say screen space) in an effort to reestablish some solidity if a model gets too mushy from editing. in maya or max for instance you could select some components (say faces or verts) and scale them along a defined axis such as local, wold, or perhaps arbitrary. as they components get scaled to zero they would become planar. i don’t necessarily need a solution the is homologous but just one that has the same end result. for instance, with clay you could use a tool with a flat edge to scrape away excess material or press a flat surface into the clay forcing it to conform. i hope this question doesn’t seem too off the deep end, but planes play an important part of my understanding of human anatomy. they help me break down the underlying anatomy into understandable parts. from that starting point i can then add curved and smoothing aspect to come to a final result.

[reboren]

for 3 use smart resym and mask the side of the face u want to copy

for 5 cant you just use the smooth transform

[aurick]

1. ZBrush’s camera is by default orthographic. Perspective transformation can be activated in the DRAW palette.

2. Open the Tool>Preview and Tool>Deformation menus. Use the Rotate deformation to change the direction that the model is facing in the Preview. What you see there will be exactly how it draws. Alternatively, you can rotate it within the preview by clicking and dragging. Hold down the Shift key to snap it to the planar orientation closest to the current angle. Then click Preview>Store. The orientation will be the new default orientation. Note: Changing this will also change how the model loads back into your other software.

3. You’ll find the answer here. Just replace the MultiDraw, etc. settings with your own. For a switch, you use IPress. For a slider, you use ISet.

4. The Flatten deformation will work. Remember that all deformations are based on the axes shown in the Preview (local coordinates), and not what you see on the canvas (global coordinates).

[system]

1. i’m still a bit lost here. i’m using zbrush as part of a game production pipeline. because of this ALL of my work ends up outside ZBrush (and its ortho-centric viewport/canvas) and inside perspective oriented engines (i.e. max, maya and eventually a 3d game engine). problem is, after i import an .obj into Z and refine it to my satisfaction and bring it back into maya engine to animate, weight, etc… the objects looks distorted due to the orthographic to perspective transition. whats got me confused is when i look at skycasle’s stuff which he has rendered in maya i don’t get the sense he’s running into the same problem. i’ve tried using the perspective button and the global perspective stuff (shift-clicking on the perspective button) but since they don’t work in conjunction with most of the very tools that make ZBrush so powerful (i.e. transform>edit>Std,Inflat,Morph,Layer,Pinch,Nudge and Smooth) i don’t get what use they are other then as an occasional preview of an approximation what it may look like outside ZBrush. So, i’m not knocking Z for being ortho (i’m sure it helps with many of Z’s functions) i’m just trying to figure out why i’m running into these problems while some seems to skip right past them.

2. cool.

3. thanks reboren. if i make a morph target of my object, do a masked smart reSym and then start editing my object with transform>edit>morph (draw pointer with) i can get what i was looking for. great!

4. worked great thanks. i gave it a whirl and came up with this

/Custom tablet preferences at startup
[VarDef,TabletInited,0]
[If,!TabletInited,
[VarInc,TabletInited]
[ISet,Preferences:Tablet Size,0]
[ISet,Preferences:Tablet Intensity,100]
[ISet,Preferences:Tablet Imbed,0]
[ISet,Preferences:Tablet Color,0]
][pd]
]/End of ZScript/

i’m not sure if this is “proper” but it seems to work for me.

5. i guess i was looking for something a bit different. however both of the suggests do head in the general direction of the approach i was looking for. the smooth works ok if i mask the areas that i don’t want to effect. the Flatten deformation works well but its a tedious process to line up the preview window just right. but i think i can work something out by using these in combination with other functions, thanks.