How to select another tool I accidentally put onto the canvas? (solved)

[Embraced_Ford]

So this is a silly thing I still haven’t understood yet. Basically if I draw out a tool on the canvas, I can then go to edit mode and work on it, right? So what if I now draw out two tools? I can only select the most recently drawn one and edit it, but I don’t know how to select or even get rid of the other one.

Only way to solve this so far for me has been restarting zbrush.

A practical example:

This problem came up again as I was trying to get a hang of zSpheres. So I have a model here, then switched to zSpheres and drew one out on the canvas because I wanted to add it as a subtool to the model I was working on. I made something with the zSpheres, used adaptive skin to turn it into a simple model but now I have no way of getting it into the “Subtools” category of the model I was working on and wanted the zSpheres model for. Even worse, through some fiddeling I drew out another tool (the model I was working on + the zSpheres created model for some reason) and now I can’t get rid of all the crap I added and can’t continue working on the model because it only lets me touch the most recently created.

TL;DR: How do I switch between, delete, or merge different tools on the canvas?

If someone could help me with this that would be great. This has been probably the biggest mystery so far.

[zber2]

So this is a silly thing I still haven’t understood yet. Basically if I draw out a tool on the canvas, I can then go to edit mode and work on it, right? So what if I now draw out two tools? I can only select the most recently drawn one and edit it, but I don’t know how to select or even get rid of the other one.

Only way to solve this so far for me has been restarting zbrush.

Press Ctrl+N to clear the canvas then draw the Tool out again. Any editing you have done to the Tool has not disappeared. It’s still the way you left it. What happens is, if you turn off Edit and draw another instance of the Tool on the canvas, then the first one becomes part of the Document and can no longer be edited in 3D. This workflow is used in 2.5D illustration, but that is a whole different aspect of ZBrush that I won’t go into here.

This problem came up again as I was trying to get a hang of zSpheres. So I have a model here, then switched to zSpheres and drew one out on the canvas because I wanted to add it as a subtool to the model I was working on. I made something with the zSpheres, used adaptive skin to turn it into a simple model but now I have no way of getting it into the “Subtools” category of the model I was working on and wanted the zSpheres model for. Even worse, through some fiddeling I drew out another tool (the model I was working on + the zSpheres created model for some reason) and now I can’t get rid of all the crap I added and can’t continue working on the model because it only lets me touch the most recently created.

When you click ‘Make Adaptive Skin’ it will put it in the ‘Tool’ palette (not the Subtool palette) and it will have the prefix “Skin_”… Click ‘Append’ or ‘Insert’ in the Subtool palette to add it to the Subtools.

TL;DR: How do I switch between, delete, or merge different tools on the canvas?

You Select, ‘Delete’ and ‘Merge’ them in the Subtool palette. If you have more than one subtool in the SubTool list, just click on one to make it the active subtool. You can also select a subtool on the canvas by holding down ‘Alt’ and clicking on it.

[Doug_Jones]

You can also take advantage of Layers which are quite powerful. Once you’re happy with 1 tool on the screen, you can create a new layer to draw another tool on and edit. The first layer is no longer editable in 3D but you can use 2.5D brushes or draw copies of various tools on its canvas layer. http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/layer/

[Embraced_Ford]

Thanks to you two. Your answers were very helpful.