ZBrushCentral

File saving question....

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I have a question…

Say I’m working on a texture project in ZBrush and wanted to save the file to work on later… how does one do that? Do you save it as a tool and included maps with it or is there a better way??

I’ve tried my best but I’m an old newbie and rarely have time to really dig in but this project needs some program that I can paint over seems and get fine detail in and ZBrush seems like the best way to go but upon trying to restore a file saved through the Doc palette like “Save” or “Save As” seems to do nothing when trying to open it.

I just need a run down of WHAT to save as WHAT. If I need to save out one two or three files to get a fully working set going as I had going the previous session, then so be it.

Please assist.

Thanks! :cool:

#2

tool>save as

if you’re working in 3d always save a .ztl file
always at the lowest subD
always without any masks
always without any hidden geo.

if you’re working in 2.5d then you want to save a zdoc…not sure on the extension.

#3

Thanks so much Ghost! :smiley:

#4

OK, I’m back, yea, this is how often I have to play with this program!! :confused:

Did as you instructed and the tool loaded up fine but there was NO info saved so my paint job is gone!! :evil: Luckily I didn’t do much on it so it’s not a complete loss!

This is why I get so frustrated with a program like this. Nothing is CLEARLY laid out. Always depending on others it seems to help. Not saying the info you imparted was wrong, it’s probably right but there seems to be no newbie tuts that addresses stuff like this. Not all of us have hours and days that we can devote to a project, sometimes it’s days and months before we have the time to revisit something we have started. Mind you the mesh is still in the state I saved it as but the paint info seems to be gone!

Someone PLEASE instruct me and please Pixologic, make a set of vid tutorials on the basics like saving projects that include painting projects for later for those of us that need that extra helping hand because of time constraints in RL!

Thanks kindly!!

#5

If you had polypainting on the model, it was saved with the tool. To view it, “Colorize” must be turned on in the Polypaint Menu (3.5).

Custom material settings are only saved in Documents, not tools, or they are saved out individually, if that is what you are referring to.

The basics of saving files in Zbrush are covered in the “getting started” section of the Zbrush documentation.

http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/TOC

I suggest you read through every link on that page, the same way you should read through the manual of any high end software. Specific 3.5 documentation is being prepared, but the information in the documentation is still 95 % relevant, and would have answered your initial question.

#6

Thanks, I’ll read through that when I get a month or so to digest all that info!! :slight_smile:

OK so explain to me, what is the use of loading up a zbr file when all it seems to be is a background image?? A tool or ztl file seems to be more important but it’s very very confusing for a newbie to think that loading up a scene.zbr file is going to be useful when it seems it’s not useful at all.

So please explain to me how does one make proper use of a zbr file.

zbr VS a ztl file? or

Is there a way to merge them and make them a full scene file?

Thanks kindly!

#7

Have you watched the tutorials in the ZClassroom. These include polypainting, 2.5d vs 3d, saving documents & tools and many other subjects.
Think of the zbr document as a canvas which also includes depth and material infomation. You can use this for illustrations and other visual works. Watch some of the videos from Meats Meier for example http://www.vimeo.com/meatsmeier/videos

Richard

#8

OK, watched the “Saving Documents & Tools” vid at the ZClassroom.

For those watching this thread the ZClassroom is here:
http://www.pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/

Click on the left screen link with the up arrow to get the chapters and scroll through them using the < and > keys on the left side of the chapter scroller on the bottom of the screen.

Still trying to wrap my head around the 2.5d and 3D saves. Not sure in which instances I would need to save the doc as a 2.5D zbr :-/

Thanks for the tips folks! :slight_smile:

#9

If you’re making 3d models you’ll probably never need to save the document so don’t worry about it. The 2.5d side comes from the the origins of zbrush.

Richard

#10

So it’s nothing to do with saving out textures with the model, that’s only with ztl files, correct??

Now what if I create layers, are those to be saved out, each one, separately or can those be saved as one tool?

#11

Thanks, your correct!! YAY!! :smiley: