Improvements Needed for Zbrush Image Planes Workflow
- Image Planes:
a. Do not save with your ZProject.
b. If you need to do any additional work to the image planes, Zbrush becomes very unstable when loading new images into the view.
c. If you have been saving your files as ZProjects, you can not load your model into a new clean scene when you are working with the Image Planes. (Due to the fact that the program was crashing when trying to update the original ZProject files.) It would be nice if you could load a specific part of a ZProject or the entire thing by appending the files to your currently open scene.
d. If I have a currently Stored View in Image Planes, the ImgSize slider is not changing the background image size. I have to load a new image at this point and it crashes the program.
e. If I use the transpose tools while an Image Plane is visible it will stick to the image plane very, very far off in the distance. This is making it so I have to clear the view, set up my action line, then enable the image plane view, I then have to click on another stored view and then click back on the view I want to use in order to get the image to show up correctly.
f. When I store my views, save them and then load them in a future session, my front view is always coming in upside down and backwards. All other views work, this view however have problems every time.
g. Image Planes wants you to have a model selected in order for you to build views past the first initial view that you make. This is confusing.
h. I want to set my front view, then turn that into a side, back etc. But every time I hit a new view button it removes my loaded image and gives me some default view. So I have been stealing the camera saves from Zapplink in order to store a camera view so I can match the Zoom distance from my front and use it on my other views.
i. Sometimes future sessions of ZBRush will have the Image Plane Model Opacity slider turned down, this will cause your model to look really dark and you will not be able to figure out why until you find the slider isn’t at 100 percent. I have seen this drive artist bonkers trying to figure out how to make their models show correctly in the viewport.
Hopefully there are already some solutions to these problems, but really, this tool needs to function correctly, no one really cares what the method is that is going on behind the scenes, and to the end user that should be transparent. It just needs to work correctly. ZBrush really needs to get a true camera/viewport management system. Each camera should be easy to select, duplicate, and turn on and off image planes. This is crucial for workflows where one needs to hit dead on a likeness from a portrait or a concept.
