ZBrushCentral

Draw a series of rivets with mesh insert

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I want to draw a large series of rivets on a model of a boat that I have. I am wondering what will be the easiest way. I have tried the MeshInsert Dot brush with a mesh of a rivet, but the problem is that I find it hard to draw a series of rivets of the same size in a straight line.

Is this the correct way? I have the feeling there must be an easier solution.

#2

Hi there,

I am new to zBrush and your problem was interesting.
3ds max has a spacing tool. Pretty simple. Draw a spline and duplicate your model along the spline.
“Too easy for zBrush” I thought, but until now I haven’t found a solution.

An alpha brush and “lazy mouse” with increased “Lazy Steps” would do the trick for rivets, but it’s not extra gemetry. No idea if one can do this via masking, hiding and extracting or polygroups?
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?45342-Stroke-Spacing-disabled&highlight=mesh+insert+spacing

I played around with the curve stroke, which brought nice effects.
But geometry is stretched along the curve.
Would be cool to distribute selected mesh on each curve point.
(This would be the spacing tool, even cooler if curve would virtually stay)

Google didn’t help me, Online documentation didn’t help me, tutorial videos have no search functions.

But there must be a simple solution. I have seen so many things here that have to be done by an automatic function.

Anyone an advice?
Link?
Sign?

#3

Yeah, I was kind of surprised that I couldn’t find an obvious way to achieve this. In the meantime it would help if there was a way that the mesh inserted with the ‘meshinsert dot’ brush had a fixed size. Now when I have to draw all rivets by hand it is very difficult to give them all the same size.

There must be an easier way…

#4

Here’s a suggestion for something that’s real quick and easy, but it’s not mesh insert.

rivets.jpg

#5

That’s a good tip but not exactly what I am looking for. It must be mesh insert.

#6

Just curious, but why must it be mesh insert?

#7

Because the mesh I want to insert has a very specific form.

#8

You can use the MeshInsert Brush this way:

  1. Draw your first rivet using the MeshInsert Brush. Don’t worry about the size and position.
  2. Switch to Move or Scale mode so that you can adjust the rivet to the exact size and position using the Transpose actionline.
  3. If necessary, switch to Move mode and draw out the actionline somewhere convenient.
  4. Hold Ctrl and click+drag in the center white ring. This will drag out a duplicate; position in the next point along your line. After releasing the mouse DO NOT move or rotate the model at all.
  5. Press 1 on the keyboard. The last duplicate and move action will be repeated.

You can keep pressing 1 until you need to change direction. Then you will need to repeat the duplicate procedure at (4) for the new direction. Remember that it is essential not to rotate the model. The reason is that the hotkey 1 is assigned to the Stroke>Replay Last button. Any canvas action qualifies as a stroke, whether on or off the model, so for this to work the last action has to be what you do at (4) above.

Note that if you have assigned 1 as a hotkey to something else this won’t work and you’ll need to assign a hotkey to the Stroke>Replay Last button.

HTH,

#9

Thanks, marcus_civis.
This is the best option so far but the problem is that all duplicates are along a line parallel to the screen, not along the surface of the object I am inserting the meshes into. I want to draw a series/line of rivets on a curved surface. Like the rivets on a barrel.

#10

If the mesh does have radial symmetry, like your barrel example, then you can draw our one rivet, with radial symmetry turned on and it’ll be copied around the whole circumference of the mesh. Obviously this won’t work if the object’s curves are random.

#11

Unfortunately the curves are indeed random.

#12

I guess I have to draw and scale them all by hand then. Strange, since it doesn’t sound like too exotic a feature and I would have expected some general workflow for this.

Anyhow, thanks for thinking along!

#13

Most people would make a custom roll brush for this, using their own alpha. When the final detail is output to a displacement map there’d be little point in going to the trouble of inserting meshes. However with Dynamesh the InsertMesh brushes are really coming into their own. This is bound to lead to different working methods. Dynamesh is new in ZBrush, so expect to see some developments in the future.