ZBrushCentral

LightBox "other" folder question

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

In the documentation it says this

"If you would like to access your own folders in the Other tab just save all of your
Texture, Alphas, and etc in the ZBrush>ZExportImport folder. How when you click on the
Other tab all of your folders will be there. " --their spelling mistake btw

I’ve tried this and Lightbox doesn’t see any folders…what i actually would like to do is to be able to browse with Lightbox various folders of images on my HD’s without having to copy them all to the Zbrush app folder.

Am i missing something really obvious?..likely:D
Using a mac btw if that makes any difference

also this:
“You are able to save shortcuts in LightBox. If you have an external hard drive you
can put a shortcut in the ZBrush3.5>ZTools folder so that will always be there when you
load LightBox.”

Is this implying that you can save a shortcut to specific Ztools that are on a hardrive or a shortcut to the actual drive? As no shortcuts i save are seen by Lightbox in any folder

Cheers,
mala

#2

I would love to know if there is a solve for this as well. Would be cool if there was a search or pull up directory of harddrive feature. Would be no fun to have to manually type out the entire C:\User + location info to get to the various folders you had scattered about. I like to save my projects in folders with a group system. ZTL/Images/Alphas/Views.

#3

For my windows machine, a standard shortcut works in Spotlight to redirect me to a folder on my drive. Don’t have a Mac license, but an alias might have the same functionality. If not, you can try using a symbolic link: open terminal, cd to the zimportexport folder, and use ‘ln -s <folder path> <link name>’

#4

hmm…this must be a mac problem then and Lightbox doesn’t like the mac alias.

…not good,the last thing i want to be doing is copying a whole hard drive of images to the ZBrush folder

#5

Been hunting for a solution to this myself. Not keen on keeping everything in a single folder. I like to organize my items.

Cheers

Mike R

#6

Yes it would be nice to have some kind of official response to how exactly lightbox is supposed to be used for this kind of thing.

I have managed to get it to open an image by putting the image directly in the export/import folder…but not with great results(see pic) admittedly it is a large image…which makes me think there is some kind of upper limit on texture size when using Spotlight as well.

Attachments

ImageImport.jpg

#7

have you guys tried the symbolic link command I posted before on the Mac? curious if that works instead of an alias.

How big is that file? Spotlight loads huge files for me with no problem.

#8

Hi oofnish,

I haven’t tried your idea yet …mainly because i’ve no idea what i’m doing with terminal and don’t want to cause any kinda permanent damage:eek:…

That image i tried to load up is 5412 x 7216 jpeg its from a series of hi res photos i have for skin textures once i resaved it as a psd file its imported fine

#9

oofnish:
tried the symbolic link: Working in Finder , but not visible in Lightbox :frowning: as the Alias :frowning:

#10

neither finder shortcuts nor symbolic links created via terminal seem to work.

anyone have any luck with this?

#11

So much for the parity across platforms then.

Did Pixol actually have any Beta testers that use Mac’s?..and for that mattter did any of them try using GoZ with Cinema4D and not think it strange that the texture paths are incorrect:mad:

#12

Has anyone using ZB on a Mac,managed to browse folders/images that are not in the default tex,alpha,import/export etc ‘Zfolders’ by the way of shortcuts or any other method?

I have filed a ticket with support on this,but get the feeling it is largely being ignored…as there have been a few posts here on the same subject with no ‘official’ response…

#13

Would be nice if it also had the ability to search on partial names as well. I have tried and it brings up a blank.

For example if I type “head” it brings up nothing as the model is actually called “Zhead” or something. I tried putting “*head” and it still does not show the file. So its pretty useless unless you remember exactly what you called it… at least on a mac.

Cheers

Mike R

#14

I can only confirm that on my Mac the Alias / symlink Option doesn’t work either. It’s kind of inconvenient for my style of managing projects and their assets.

#15

unfortunately symlinks and alias still not working in zb4r2

btw what do you write in the “*”
i can’t figure out what the path handler should be
I’ve tried !:/Path and /Path

this is all on mac

any ideas anyone?

#16

has anyone encountered problems with loading ZB 4r2 after copying files to (for example Alphas) to start up folder(in mac)?

#17

Are you running the right version? I am seeing folders and can browse away to my hearts content now in R2. It just sees all the folders as expected which I am extremely happy about. I didn’t have to make any aliases or anything like that.

If I am on the wrong track as to what your talking about say so and if I can help I will.

Oh, and yes I am on a mac using osx 10.7.

Mike

#18

mike, you talking to me?
if thats the case, yes sir, I’m sure I’m running R2 :slight_smile: (on lion)
there is no problem browsing and seeing folders with r2.
problem is my matcap, textures, alpha etc content folder is far away from the zbrush app folder. so i have to browse for miles just to get something with lightbox. thats why i want to create aliases or symlinks in the zB directory so its there right away in lightbox. this is apparently possible on the windows platform as its suggested in the actual zbrush manual to create shortcuts. but its no go on mac. the app just doesn’t recognize aliases or symlinks as directories.

for the poster who’s asking about startup with content in zstartup folder
for me I’ve experienced no problems with this.
but in the past I’ve learned the more content you put in there the more the app has to load on startup the slower it will get. I’ve only been putting the most used stuff in there so it doenst have to load like crazy.
I’ve seen this principle of load content on startup across many other apps especially those that load a lot of font content.

now back to r2 :smiley:

#19

No big, I just will have to get used to turning on and off lightbox(I’m a screen landscape hog) and I’m working with what is probably near to min system.Bst