ZBrushCentral

How do I move my object to line up with my reference grid?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Uggh…I am new to Zbrush and the simplest things can be so hard to figure out. All the tutorials on move are moving the camera around and the info I did find on moving the object such as pressing W and alt+clicking doesn’t work for me either. Do I have to make something a PolyMesh3D object before I can move it as a whole? Should I be moving the reference grid instead? If so, then how would I do that.

Can someone please explain how I would just move a sphere around to line up with a reference image on a reference grid?

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bryson
brysonjack.com

#2

Pressing W will bring up the Transpose Line W=Move E=Scale R=Rotate. If you hold down Alt and LMB you should be able to move your model around the Canvas or place the cursor in the centre of the white circle. By any chance did you activate a mask on your model (Ctrl click and drag on the canvas to clear).

If you haven’t already, I would recommend having a look at ZClassroom. Its a great place too start when you are new to ZBrush.

Good Luck

#3

http://docs.pixologic.com/getting-started/basic-concepts/

#4

You don’t line up the mesh to the images, you line up the images to the mesh. See Grids and Floor Grid.

#5

I appreciate the confirmation that what I was doing should be working. I cleared the canvas (yet again) and then the move tool started to work. I don’t know what happened but it is now working as it should.

Thanks to both of you for your help. I may have given the wrong impression about myself. Although I am new to ZBrush, I have spent an enormous amount of time paying my dues, watching and reading from both of the recommended sources, so I can get around ZBrush. I have been working in a lot of other applications for the past few months and apparently I spent too much time away because ZBrush was foreign to me all over again. I have personal notes that I wrote out while learning it and so when ZBrush wasn’t doing what it should, I got frustrated. I asked for help because it is a daunting task to try and track down where exactly the solution to my problem was addressed in videos or written material, and I am trying to use this in production.

If I may say this, although I appreciate the general pointers to ZClassroom and the manual, the most helpful thing for me (and probably other new users) is to get actual links to the material that relates to helping solve the issue at hand. The problem is that there is so much information and it isn’t easily searchable. It is a daunting task to read and view everything to try and find the needle in a haystack.

Thanks again for the help,
Bryson

#6

Thanks Zber2…yeah I set up the floor grids correctly, but for whatever reason, the move tool wasn’t working for me. I was just wondering if maybe since ZBrush doesn’t technically have 3D coordinates and I was moving the camera, that another possible solution might be moving the reference grid instead of the object once the reference grid was set up. It is moot point now because I got the move tool to work. Thanks for your help. I do appreciate your direct links to the solutions you were discussing which is very helpful. Thanks.

#7

Also make sure you’re using the latest version. You should have ZB4R6 P2.

#8

To be honest, it just sounds like you just had something masked and when you cleared the mask everything started working again.

#9

That is what I think it was as well. The possibility for user error on my part is too great and the possibility of a bug doing that is rather small. The next time that I press W and the transpose tool doesn’t show up, the first trouble shooting step I will follow is to clear all masks.

Bryson