ZBrushCentral

Help in using PaintStop plugin

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

In his Introducing ZBrush, Eric Keller makes reference to Zketchpad as an alternative to the standard ZB interface. However, Zketchpad is a ZB 2 plugin, and I’m using 3.5. I created the “underwater laboratory” document (the background and plane) Keller uses as an illustration project, and I tried to bring it into PaintStop to work on it (as Keller suggests you can do with Zketchpad). I put it into Edit/Draw and opened PaintStop. However, the work I do in PaintStop does not save to the ZBrush doc. What I would like to do is just use PaintStop options (markers, pencils, etc.) as alternatives to the ZB brushes when doing an illustration on a ZB document. Can that be done? Thanks for any help.

DocPit

#2

By default, Paintstop will export your current tab (painting) when exit the plugin. You can see it on the Texture pallete. If not, go Edit > Preferences and check “Export image to Zbrush on exit”

To save your image, you have 3 options:

  1. You can save as a tab, on the Paintstop file menu, so you can open this same tab o a later session.
  2. You can export as a regular image (PSD, BMP ot TIF) on Paintstop file menu.
  3. Or you can click on Menus button, on the right upper corner of Zbrush. This will bring Zbrush palletes back, so you can go on Document pallete and hit Save as. This will save you painting as a regular ZBR doc.

Hope this helps.

#3

Jramauri,

Thanks very much for your response, but perhaps I need to clarify:

(Again, I’m using ZB 3.5 rc3 with the most current download of PaintStop in Windows 7 64-bit.)

I understand the options for creating and saving an illustration in PaintStop. I also realize I can either create an illustration in ZB and bring it into PaintStop for further work, or I can create an illustration in PS and bring it into ZB for further work. In either case, PaintStop is being used as a separate application. First use PS, then use ZB, OR first use ZB, then use PS.

I’m questioning whether PS can be used seemlessly as an alternative interface within ZB. The ZApp Link might clarify what I want to do:

“ZApp Link 3 is a ZBrush plugin that allows you to seamlessly integrate your favorite image editing software into your ZBrush workflow. Call up your image editing package while in ZBrush, use it to modify the active ZBrush document or tool, and then go straight back into ZBrush.”

That’s what I would like to be able to do with PaintStop. The obvious question: So why not use ZApp Link to load PaintStop? I know you can specify a “target application” for ZApp Link by its filename.exe. I don’t see a way to specify PaintStop (which is a ZB plug-in rather than a stand alone application) as the target app for ZApp Link, and I don’t see a way to “integrate PaintStop seemlessly into the ZB workflow” without ZApp Link.

Hope that makes sense.

DocPit

#4

This is to share an email I just received from Marcus at Pixologic Plugins. Hopefully, this post will be helpful for anyone not aware of this PaintStop plugin. Square brackets enclose my notes.

Attached is a macro that will enable you to switch easily between PaintStop and ZBrush. Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Unzip the file to your desktop and move the ‘Toggle PaintStopUI.txt’ file to your ZBrush 3.5 R3\ZStartup\Macros\Misc folder.
  2. Restart ZBrush or press Macro>Reload All Macros. [Had to Reload even after startup.] There will now be a button called ‘Toggle PaintStopUI’ in the macro>Misc submenu.
    3.If you have a custom UI layout then you will need to save a copy of this so the macro can find it. Press Preferences>Config>Save Ui and save the file to the ZBrush 3.5 R3\ZStartup\UserInterfaceLayouts\ folder and name it MyCustomUI.cfg

To use the toggle:
1.PaintStop must be launched first during a session. Press the PaintStop button.
2. To ensure the ZBrush menus are visible set the option in Edit>Preferences. [The Edit button is visible after PaintStop is launched.]
3. To get back to the ZBrush UI, press the Toggle PaintStopUI macro button [Macro>Macros>Toggle PSUI] .
4. When ready to go back to PaintStop press the macro button again. [Macro>Macros>Toggle PSUI]

Notes:
*PaintStop has its own set of hotkeys which will override ZBrush ones until you exit PaintStop using the PaintStop Exit button.
*ZAppLink is designed with features for painting your model as in Projection Master which aren’t available in PaintStop.
*Some operations in ZBrush may mean that PaintStop ceases to behave as expected!

The text of the TogglePaintStopUI macro follows: ______________________________________________ //ZBRUSH MACRO - Recorded in ZBrush version 3.5 [IButton,???,"Toggle PaintStop UI - launch PaintStop first", [IShowActions,0] [IConfig,3.5] [If,[MemGetSize,MC_PntStpL],,[MVarDef,MC_PntStpL,1,0]] [VarDef,UIfile,"ZBRUSH_ZStartup\UserInterfaceLayouts\MyCustomUI.cfg"] [If,[FileExists,UIFile],,[VarSet,UIFile,"ZBRUSH_ZStartup\UserInterfaceLayouts\UIStandard.cfg"]] [If,[MVarGet,MC_PntStpL,0]==0, [If,(([MVarGet,MC_PntStp_Data,33]==1)&&([FileExists,UIFile])), [FileNameSetNext,UIFile] [IPress,Preferences:Config:Load Ui] [MVarSet,MC_PntStpL,0,1] ] , [If,(([MVarGet,MC_PntStp_Data,33]==1)&&([FileExists,"ZBRUSH_ZStartup\ZPlugs\PaintStopData35\PaintStop.cfg"])), [FileNameSetNext,"ZBRUSH_ZStartup\ZPlugs\PaintStopData35\PaintStop.cfg"] [IPress,Preferences:Config:Load Ui] [MVarSet,MC_PntStpL,0,0] ] ] ,,1] ____________________________________________________ I found the macro very helpful. Hope others do as well. Thanks, Marcus. Regards, DocPit