ZBrushCentral

interface and zsphere/subtool questions

I’ve been using Zbrush 3.1 all summer and loving it, but I’ve come up against 2 questions about the interface and another, more involved, problem I’m having with a tool I created with Zspheres.

I just bought a much larger monitor so I would have a larger document window. However, on my new 24" screen the document window is still the same size it was on my 20" screen-- there is just a larger gray border around it. How can I adjust the document window to make it as big as possible on my new larger screen?

Also, while working on a lot of tools, whenever I hit F to fit the tool to the screen, the tool is a little bit bigger than the document window so I have to always hit F and then scale it down some more to see the whole thing. I’ve noticed this seems to happen more often–or perhaps exclusively-- with tall vertical objects. I’ve had this same problem with both my 20" screen and my 24" screen. Are the tools just fitting to the horizontal dimension even though they are vertical compositions? Is there any way I can adjust the tool so I will see the whole thing in the document window when I hit F?

Finally, and most urgently, I am working on a character that includes a mask. I created the character’s body and the mask separately with Zspheres. I started working on the body and brought the mask in as a Subtool. The mask came in toward the middle/bottom on the character-- probably near to the location of the original zSphere before I made the adaptive skin. I used the transpose tools to place the mask, worked on it for a while and then, when I divided the geometry in the mask, many spikes came shooting out back down toward the spot where the mask had initially appeared when I brought it in as a subtool. Although these spikes had not been present in the lower initial division of polygons, when I hit shift D to go back down they were now present.

I brought other objects in as subtools (including another object I had begun with zSheres) and none of them had this same problem. I brought the mask in at a higher division of polygons and the problem existed immediately. As I tried to move it with the transpose move tool, it seemed like some points, or pixols, were stuck in place. This did not happen with other objects brought in as subtools.

Did something odd happen in my use of zSpheres to make this mask? Does anyone have any idea what I may have done wrong?

I’d appreciate any thoughts.

I’m not sure about the problem with the mask.

Regarding the document size, you need to use a StartupDocument. The instructions for that are found in the Interface Customization section at www.pixologic.com/docs

As for F – I’ve never had this problem myself. However, you might try using a canvas that’s larger than can fit within the window. This creates the bounding box around the window, and F then sizes the object relative to the bounding box.

to me it sounds like your tools are all scaled too large, check the Tool:Preview window to see if they fit in there, if not you should Deformation:size them down or Unify.

I think the spikes problem you are having with your mask model come from the fact that a few of the polygons are masked off. Try loading the mask model by itself then press TOOL:Masking:Clear and re-save your mask model.

This was a problem marcus_civis ran into in one of his ZScripts which was solved with a clear-mask command.

Sven