ZBrushCentral

How do I mask this flat surface or make a polygroup?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hello everyone. I’m new to Zbrush and am really loving it so far. I have watched lots of tutorials and videos about masking and polygroups but I’m having trouble with what I think should be simple. I have this partial hummingbird and I want to completely mask only the flat surface of it so I can extract mesh. I assume the only way to mask the entire flat surface is to first polygroup? I don’t know if its because the hummingbird has so many vertices but hitting different polygroup buttons does not seem to make any polygroups. They all look the same color after trying some.

I’m attaching a link to the file in addition to this image. Thank you for any knowledge or help.

Rick

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x814i68n61nfgaf/humming%20bird%201mm%20grid%20project.ZPR?dl=0hummingbird pic.jpg

Attachments

hummingbird pic.jpg

#2

It’s already a polygroup (I guess because you used a Trim brush or something) so all you need to do is Shift+Ctrl+click on the flat surface. This will hide the rest of the model. To mask it, Ctrl+click the background, then Shift+Ctrl+click the background to show the whole model again.

#3

Hi, Marcus

Thank you for the information. I will try what you said when I get home. What I tried last night was hitting the “W” button for move/transpose tool, then I hit control shift drag but this started masking all of the model, and not just the flat surface.

Your method sounds different so I’ll try this.

Thank you.

#4

You can use the TransposeSmartMask brush which will mask by topology:

  1. Press ‘B’ and select the TransposeSmartMask brush.
  2. Turn off the Gizmo3D so that you get the Transpose line.
  3. Hold Ctrl and drag out the line starting in the middle of the flat area of your model. As you drag you’ll see the masked area expand. You can stop dragging when it reaches the edge of the flat area.

However, as this works with topology you’ll see that there’s a small unmasked area where the eye was. You can hold Shift+Ctrl+drag to add this area to the mask (keep dragging until the eye outline is masked).

But the method I posted earlier is quicker.SmartMask.jpg

#5

Holy crap. Your first method is amazing! You were exactly right. I think one of the things I didn’t understand is that because of the small vertices on the wireframe, I could not see different colors. But I also didn’t know that you could select things this way. Thank you!