I was trying to open a file in zbrush and got this error message:
“Error has been encountered while trying to load a Tool. Loading has been aborted.”
Is there something I can do to recover the file, or at least part of the information in it?
Once a file has been lost like that, it’s lost. While ZBrush has algorithms to prevent file corruption, they’re not bulletproof. It’s always recommended to save your work incrementally so that if the worst happens you only lose a little time rather than a lot.
Most of the times that a model gets lost it’s actually due to the user trying to make ZBrush do more than the computer is capable of.
Out of curiosity, what is the model’s file size? Anything over 4 GB cannot be loaded by any 32-bit program.
Also, how many polys and layers does the model have? Layers are a powerful tool, but you need to be smart about using them. They are essentially morph targets for your model. So let’s say you have a model with 5 million polygons and 10 layers. That model will actually be 55 million polys, exceeding what your system can handle. Same goes with a 15 million poly model that has 3 layers – that’s actually 60 million polys in total. So the more polys your model has, the fewer layers you want to use.
Thanks for the reply.
The file was, indeed, a bit over 4GB, so that must have been the problem. I had several objects, all subdivided and with layers on them, so it’s exactly what you described.
The worst part is that I always save incrementally, but in order to save some disk space I deleted all the previous version a few days ago, something I never do while I’m working on a project, and I went and decided to do it this time.
Zbrush should not allow users to work with files that are not able to get stored on your computer.
At least it could warn the user or give you a hint so he can take actions to optimize the file before everything is stored into a black hole. I hope the 64 bit version will put an end to this problem.